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Catheter thrombosis would seem to be an unlikely complication of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) because anticoagulants are used routinely during the procedure. One particular anticoagulant, fondaparinux, does not require monitoring and rarely induces heparin-associated thrombocytopenia. However, guide-catheter thrombosis is more common with fondaparinux than with heparin or enoxaparin low-molecular-weight heparin.
To investigate the mechanism of fondaparinux-associated catheter thrombosis, investigators from Canada analyzed clot formation on PCI catheter segments in vitro and developed a rabbit model to simulate the PCI procedure in vivo.
Plasma exposed to catheter segments clotted more rapidly than unexposed plasma (352 seconds vs.…