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©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Role of novel oral anticoagulants in the management and prevention of venous thromboembolism
Helen E Jo, David J Barnes, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Camperdown NSW 2050, Australia
Author contributions: Both authors contributed to this paper.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors have no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Helen E Jo, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Missenden Rd, Camperdown NSW 2050, Sydney, Australia. helenjo3008@gmail.com
Telephone: +61-2-95155163 Fax: +61-2-95158196
Received: October 23, 2014
Peer-review started: October 24, 2014
First decision: November 3, 2014
Revised: December 1, 2014
Accepted: December 16, 2014
Article in press: December 17, 2014
Published online: February 6, 2015
Peer-review started: October 24, 2014
First decision: November 3, 2014
Revised: December 1, 2014
Accepted: December 16, 2014
Article in press: December 17, 2014
Published online: February 6, 2015
Core Tip
Core tip: Novel oral anticoagulants (NOACs) are emerging as viable alternatives to Vitamin K antagonist (VKA) in the treatment of venous thromboembolism. Trials have shown that they are as efficacious as current standard treatment with low-molecular-weight heparin followed by VKA, and have potentially less bleeding associated with them. The regimes are simple and no monitoring is required and therefore it has the potential to reduce the burden of anticoagulation. Caution is required however, as testing of anticoagulant effect is limited and patient selection is important as many of the NOACs are metabolized in the liver and cleared by the kidney.