Anticoagulant Therapy During Pacemaker Implantation

Summary

There are no established guidelines regarding interruption of warfarin anticoagulant therapy prior to surgical implantation of cardiac pacemakers. Continuing the anticoagulant could potentially result in increased bleeding complications from the implantation surgery, whereas discontinuing the anticoagulant could predispose the patient to blood clots and strokes. In this study we intend to randomly assign warfarin-treated patients either into interrupted or continued warfarin therapy prior to pacemaker implantation with the purpose of establishing the rate of complication in these groups. Our hypothesis is that a cardiac pacing device can be safely implanted without discontinuation of the anticoagulant therapy.

Timeline

Start

2005-09

Primary completion

2012-09

Completion

2012-09

Drugs

Indications