Gene Type Cuts Risk of Bleeding After Surgery
February 24, 2003 02:25:48 PM PST,Doctors have long known that some patients are at greater risk for bleeding after heart surgery. But they haven't always been able to predict which patients will hemorrhage during an operation and require a transfusion.
Researchers now say they have discovered a genetic variation that seems to protect heart patients from excessive bleeding after surgery, according to their report in the journal Circulation.Transfusions after heart surgery use as much as 20% of the nation's blood supply, the study's lead author Dr. Brian Donahue, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, told Reuters Health in an interview.
, 百拇医药
There are several known risk factors for bleeding after surgery, Donahue added. These include emergency surgery, current prescriptions for aspirin or other anti-clotting drugs, having more than one procedure done during surgery and having a long surgery.
"But these risk factors don't explain all the variation we see," Donahue said. "Someone who appears to be at risk won't bleed and someone else may bleed even if they appear to be at low risk."
, 百拇医药
People generally bleed after surgery because their blood isn't clotting well enough. Because of this, Donahue suspected that people who inherited a genetic variation that makes them prone to forming clots in the blood vessels might be less likely to bleed after surgery.
Clotting ability is a double-edged sword, Donahue noted. "If you clot when you should, that is good," he explained. "If you clot when you shouldn't, that is bad, because it can lead to thrombosis," the formation of clots that can block blood flow and lead to heart attack, stroke and other problems.
, 百拇医药
Donahue and his colleagues focused on a gene responsible for producing a protein called factor V, a substance essential for normal clotting. A variant called factor V Leiden, which is inherited by about 5% of the white population, makes blood more likely to clot, sometimes leading to thrombosis.
For the new study, Donahue and his colleagues followed 517 heart surgery patients. 26 of whom turned out to have one copy of the V Leiden variation.
, 百拇医药
Twenty-four hours after surgery, patients with the V Leiden variant lost almost 30% less blood than those without the variation.
But further research is needed, Donahue said, before he would be prepared to recommend testing patients for presence or lack of V Leiden before an operation
SOURCE: Circulation 2003;107:1003-1008., 百拇医药
Researchers now say they have discovered a genetic variation that seems to protect heart patients from excessive bleeding after surgery, according to their report in the journal Circulation.Transfusions after heart surgery use as much as 20% of the nation's blood supply, the study's lead author Dr. Brian Donahue, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, told Reuters Health in an interview.
, 百拇医药
There are several known risk factors for bleeding after surgery, Donahue added. These include emergency surgery, current prescriptions for aspirin or other anti-clotting drugs, having more than one procedure done during surgery and having a long surgery.
"But these risk factors don't explain all the variation we see," Donahue said. "Someone who appears to be at risk won't bleed and someone else may bleed even if they appear to be at low risk."
, 百拇医药
People generally bleed after surgery because their blood isn't clotting well enough. Because of this, Donahue suspected that people who inherited a genetic variation that makes them prone to forming clots in the blood vessels might be less likely to bleed after surgery.
Clotting ability is a double-edged sword, Donahue noted. "If you clot when you should, that is good," he explained. "If you clot when you shouldn't, that is bad, because it can lead to thrombosis," the formation of clots that can block blood flow and lead to heart attack, stroke and other problems.
, 百拇医药
Donahue and his colleagues focused on a gene responsible for producing a protein called factor V, a substance essential for normal clotting. A variant called factor V Leiden, which is inherited by about 5% of the white population, makes blood more likely to clot, sometimes leading to thrombosis.
For the new study, Donahue and his colleagues followed 517 heart surgery patients. 26 of whom turned out to have one copy of the V Leiden variation.
, 百拇医药
Twenty-four hours after surgery, patients with the V Leiden variant lost almost 30% less blood than those without the variation.
But further research is needed, Donahue said, before he would be prepared to recommend testing patients for presence or lack of V Leiden before an operation
SOURCE: Circulation 2003;107:1003-1008., 百拇医药