(Major) Tejus A, Sapna Pradhan, (Colonel) Adesh G. Mathur, Mohammed Fadil Salmani
BACKGROUND Vitamin K antagonists like warfarin have been used extensively for various medical and surgical conditions. Their use is often associated with bleeding as an adverse effect. Novel oral anticoagulants like dabigatran, rivaroxaban, apixaban achieve anticoagulation with relatively less risk of bleeding and the availability of reversal agents. The present study aims to study the drug consumption pattern of oral anticoagulants and analyses the change in pattern of prescription. MATERIALS AND METHODS The consumption pattern of oral anticoagulants was analysed from the prescriptions over a period of six years from 2013 to 2018 in a busy tertiary care centre. RESULTS The analysis of 12,05,000 prescriptions reveal that the use of warfarin dropped from 45.64% in 2013 to 7.17% in 2018. Similarly, there was a gradual rise in the use of NOAC from 3.14% in 2013 to 73.72% in 2018. CONCLUSION Novel oral anticoagulants like dabigatran, rivaroxaban, apixaban are gradually emerging as the preferred anticoagulants, along with a steady decline in the prescription of warfarin.
