Drug Spotlight Program: Guidelines for Heparin Therapy

Abstract

Thrombosis frequently complicates the course of patients, regardless of their primary disease, making it necessary that physicians, whatever their subspecialty discipline, understand the proper use of antithrombotic agents. More than 50 years after its discovery, heparin is still an extremely effective drug for the management of thrombosis. Properly given, it rapidly and reliably arrests thrombosis and prevents embolization, especially on the venous side of the circulation. Its administration, as with other drugs, requires an understanding of its pharmacology, so that the dosage, route of administration, and monitoring of effects are properly controlled. Many of the "failures" with heparin occur because the physician is uninformed about one or more of these factors. These errors can be avoided by adhering to simple management guidelines.