New consensus statements, released by a group of 36 experts, provide specific recommendations related to monitoring bleeding and assessing efficacy of treatment in patients with acquired hemophilia.
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A global survey was developed by a nine-member steering committee with expertise in the hemostatic management of patients with acquired hemophilia. The Delphi methodology was used to obtain consensus on a list of statements on the location-specific treatment of bleeding in acquired hemophilia.
“The initial survey was circulated via email for refinement and was formally corroborated at a face-to-face meeting,” wrote Andreas Tiede, MD, PhD, of Hannover (Germany) Medical School and fellow experts. The report is published in Haemophilia.
The key areas outlined include the initial management of bleeding, and management of location-specific bleeding, including urological, gastrointestinal, muscle, and pharyngeal bleeds, as well as intracranial and postpartum hemorrhage.
If an expert hematologist is not available, and the bleeding event is life‐threatening, the emergency physician should initiate treatment in accordance with local or national recommendations, according to the initial management guidelines.
With respect to urological bleeds, the best interval for evaluating successful achievement of hemostasis is every 6-12 hours. The experts also reported that, if first-line hemostatic therapy is not effective, more intensive treatment should be considered every 6-12 hours.
In the management of intracranial hemorrhage, the frequency of clinical evaluation is subject to the particular scenario, and it can vary from every 2 hours (for clinical assessment) to every 24 hours (for imaging studies), they wrote.
If initial hemostatic treatment is not effective, more intensive therapy should be considered every 6 hours, they recommended.
“The statement addressing optimal frequency for assessing hemostasis in intracranial bleeds was the subject of much deliberation among the steering committee regarding timing of assessment,” the experts acknowledged.
The geographic diversity and global representation of expert participants were major strengths of these recommendations. However, these statements did not consider socioeconomic parameters or geopolitical differences that could affect patient care. As a result, they may not be applicable to all patient populations.
The manuscript was funded by Novo Nordisk AG. The authors reported having financial affiliations with Novo Nordisk and several other companies.
SOURCE: Tiede A et al. Haemophilia. 2019 Sep 13. doi: 10.1111/hae.13844.