Summary
Following favourable results from a previous study, a large, multicentre, prospective,
case-control study was performed to further assess the incidence of bleeding complications
after dental extraction in patients taking oral anticoagulant therapy (OAT). Four
hundred fifty-one patients being treated with warfarin who required dental extraction
were compared with a control group of 449 non-anticoagulated subjects undergoing the
same procedure. In the warfarin-treated group, the oral anticoagulant regimen was
maintained unchanged, such that the patients had an International Normalised Ratio
ranging between 1.8 and 4, and local haemostatic measures (i.e. fibrin sponges, silk
sutures and gauzes saturated with tranexamic acid) were adopted. All the procedures
were performed in an outpatient setting. Seven bleeding complications occurred in
the OAT group and four in the control group; the difference in the number of bleeding
events between the two groups was not statistically significant (OR=1.754; 95% CI
0.510 – 6.034; p=0.3727). No post-operative late bleeds requiring hospitalisation
and/or blood transfusions were recorded, and the adjunctive local haemostatic measures
were adequate to stop the bleeding. The results of our protocol applied in this large,
multicenter study show that dental extractions can be performed easily and safely
in anticoagulated out-patients without any modification of the ongoing anticoagulant
therapy, thus minimising costs and reducing discomfort for patients.
Keywords
Dental extraction - anticoagulated patients - warfarin therapy - multi-center study