![]() ![]() This “point of care” approach also has been shown to decrease the need for blood transfusions later, although it is generally more costly than tests done in the lab. That way, caregivers know how much heparin is inhibiting the ability to clot so they can make adjustments, for example, if the operation is wrapping up. Their perusal, published in the journal Laboratory Medicine, determined the iSTAT platform, which enables not just a bedside determination of ACT within a few minutes but can also provide results on a wide variety of other internal measures like sodium levels in the blood, a better overall option for streamlining patient care and proficiency testing.įast-acting heparin is the commonly used anticoagulant and ACT, the most commonly used measure to keep tabs on clotting time during treatments like cardiothoracic surgery and percutaneous, or through the skin, procedures to insert a stent to improve blood flow in the heart. ![]() “You have to really get it within a certain range,” he says of the delicate balance of keeping the viscosity of the blood just right so it does not form clots that go to the lungs or brain and, conversely, does not result in bleeding. Thompson, a third-year pathology resident at the Medical College of Georgia and AU Health. “It’s like walking on a knife’s edge,” Dr. Investigators comparing some common bedside testing platforms to quickly determine how fast blood is clotting, called activated clotting time, or ACT, suggest other providers also compare results among the systems out there and use a more lengthy laboratory-based measure to confirm what they find. During big procedures like open heart surgery, patients need anticoagulants to prevent dangerous blood clot formation and regular bedside monitoring to make sure the drugs aren’t also causing problems like excessive bleeding.
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