Tranexamic acid

[Spock]

One of our orthopedic surgeons just came back from a big meeting in Chicago and talked about using tranexamic acid for total joint replacements. Apparently the drug is injected into the drain at the end of surgery and the amount of drainage is drastically reduced. He is looking into using it for total knee replacements. We give amicar to all of our CABG patients that go on pump but nobody around here is using either for prehospital.

[Aussieaid]

CALSTAR in California has started using it prehospital. I haven't heard how it's going yet.

http://www.verticalmag.com/news/article/CALSTAR-Air-Ambulance-leads-country-with-new-treatment-for-b#.UW4v8qUkI20

[HarryM]

Being used in NZ pre-hospitally by our on-call Docs. If you feel it would be useful and they can locate you faster than you can get to hospital than you can request they come out. Hopefully it will be introduced for paramedics in the near future.

[Just Plain Ruff]

Shock trauma in Baltimore maryland is using this stuff as well.

[Neesie]

I have used it twice on car now.

[Spock]

Well amicar just became the latest drug that we can't get any more so we are using tranexamic acid for our on-pump CABG patients. I've been gathering information and the Crash 2 and MATTERs trials are very interesting. I may try to add this to a couple services in my area as my doctoral dissertation.

[dananeal]

Hi all.

This is dana neal here, I'm new to this forum and I'm glad that I found it. Hope I'm going to make some new good friends.

The article you added is significant.

Tranexamic acids are used when there is need to control the bleeding. It also reduces the amount of loss of blood. It has a minor side-effects too which in general includes an upset stomach.

[Eydawn]

We just had one of our Orthopods (whose patients are almost always heavy bleeders, go figure...) start it in his post-op regimen. We're giving it IV for total knees (that's the only one I've seen it with so far) about 4 hours after they come up from PACU. Pretty interesting stuff! Nobody's had a bad reaction to it so far. I still had to reinforce damn near all those dressings though... so.... we'll see lol.

It's like the data on ketamine... everyone says yeah, it's fantastic! It's amazing! And my personal experience with it in our setting has been "holy shit! It turned my patient into a fruit loop and now they're on constant observation! That's expensive!"

Pretty cool idea!

Wendy
CO EMT-B

RN-ADN

[runswithneedles]

Ive been hearing rumors that we will be putting on our truck as well. Ive heard promising things about it however I myself have done very little of my own research.

[dananeal]

Great Post Doczilla! I have also heard of several benefits being associated with the use ofTranexamic acid. It is commonly used for stopping heavy bleeding and the dentist also use them before the removal of the teeth in order to prevent or control bleeding for thr people suffering from hemophilia. It is widely used in surgery of the prostate, bladder, or cervix or in normal nosebleeds, heavy periods or for bleeding inside the eye.