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Safety of Antithrombotic Agents in Elderly Patients with Acute Coronary Syndromes

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Abstract

There are unique challenges in the treatment and prevention of acute coronary syndromes (ACS) with antithrombotics in elderly patients: elderly patients usually require multiple drugs due to comorbidities, are highly susceptible to adverse drug reactions and drug–drug interactions, may have cognitive problems affecting compliance and complications, are especially exposed to the risk of falls and, most importantly, ageing is an independent risk factor for bleeding. Antithrombotic drugs, alone or in association, further and variously amplify age-related bleeding risk. Moreover, age-related changes in primary haemostasis may potentially affect the pharmacodynamics of some antiplatelet drugs. Thus, elderly subjects might be more or less sensitive to standard antiplatelet regimens depending on individual characteristics affecting antiplatelet drug response. Importantly, elderly patients are a rapidly growing population worldwide, have the highest incidence of ACS, but are poorly represented in clinical trials. As a consequence, evidence on antithrombotic drug benefits and risks is limited. Thus, in the real-world setting, older people are often denied antithrombotic drugs because of unjustified concerns, or might be over-treated and exposed to excessive bleeding risk. Personalized antithrombotic therapy in elderly patients is particularly critical, to minimize risks without affecting efficacy.

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Acknowledgments and Compliance with Ethical Standards

This work has been in part supported by the grant Linea D3.2 2013-70201169 to BR.

SH has received grants from Boehringer-Ingelheim and GSK; SH is part of Advisory Boards for BMS, Bayer, AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Boehringer-Ingelheim.

BR has received honoraria from MSD Italia.

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  1. Institute of Pharmacology, Catholic University School of Medicine, Largo F.Vito 1, 00168, Rome, Italy

    Bianca Rocca

  2. Medical Department, Hospital Unit West, Herning/Holstebro and Institute of Biomedicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Steen Husted

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  1. Bianca Rocca
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Correspondence to Bianca Rocca.

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Rocca, B., Husted, S. Safety of Antithrombotic Agents in Elderly Patients with Acute Coronary Syndromes. Drugs Aging 33, 233–248 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40266-016-0359-0

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