Clinical and pharmacological approaches to personalization of the prescription of oral anticoagulants: clinical cases

Abstract

Anticoagulants play an important role in reducing complications and mortality associated with thromboembolic disease. For some time, vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) have been the main drugs used for long-term oral anticoagulant therapy, but because of the significant limitations of VKAs over the past decade, pharmacological research has led to the development of new direct actingoral anticoagulants (DOACs). Direct-acting oral anticoagulants have a rapid onset of action with peak levels within 2–4 hours and a half-life of about 12 hours, which is much shorter than that of vitamin K antagonists, a more predictable anticoagulant effect, no need for dose selection, routine laboratory monitoring of pharmacodynamic effects, and a lower frequency of clinically significant drug-drug interactions compared with warfarin. But anticoagulants can still cause serious adverse drug reactions (ADRs) in the form of hemorrhagic complications in hospitalized patients, as confirmed in studies. Currently, clinical-pharmacological technologies of personalized medicine such as pharmacogenetic and pharmacokinetic studies are considered as promising approaches to improve the safety of modern pharmacotherapy, allowing the prediction and prevention of various ADRs. In addition, there are emerging studies showing the importance of genetic features of patients in relation to the metabolism of oral anticoagulants, as well as described clinical situations where different gene polymorphisms, could be responsible for changes in the pharmacokinetics of DOACs. This article reviews clinical cases in which pharmacogenetic testing and therapeutic drug monitoring are used to optimize the clinical efficacy and maximum safety of anticoagulant therapy with apixaban and rivaroxaban.