New Chest Guidelines Available Now
Henry I. Bussey, Pharm.D.
February, 2012
The long-awaited Antithrombotic Therapy and Prevention of Thrombosis, 9th ed: American College of Chest Physicians Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Guidelines was published in the February, 2012 supplement to Chest.
In past years, the printed supplement contained the entire report. This year, most of the full articles are available only online. The following links provide free access to the:
In the executive summary, new recommendations and/or changes in recommendations are highlighted with shading to make it easier for the reader to identify.
I have only scanned the shaded new and/or changed recommendations and believe that clinicians involved in the routine management of patients on anticoagulation will find some of the recommendations controversial. I encourage you to review and evaluate these new guidelines. I have intentionally NOT identified here the recommendations that I believe are controversial because I believe that each clinician should evaluate the applicability of the guidelines to his/her own practice and patients. The format of the executive summary with the shaded highlighted sections makes it easy for those familiar with the old guidelines to identify areas in which the new and/or changed guidelines may require a re-evaluation of one's current practices.
You may also want to view a podcast from the Anticogulation Forum in which their board members discuss the new guidelines.
Moderator: D. Kyle Hogarth, MD, FCCP, Podcast Editor, CHEST
Participants: Mark A. Crowther, MD; David A. Garcia, MD
The podcast is available online at http://chestjournal.chestpubs.org/site/misc/podcasts/archive.xhtml.
|