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Apixaban use in an atrial fibrillation patient with double mechanical heart valves: a case report.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Warfarin is the only approved oral anticoagulant for long-term prophylaxis against valve thrombosis and thromboembolism in patients with mechanical heart valves. To date, apixaban for patients with double (aortic and mitral) mechanical heart valves has not been reported in the literature.

Case summary

We report the case of a 50-year-old female who underwent double (aortic and mitral) mechanical valve replacement in February 2017. Warfarin was prescribed after mechanical valve replacement. However, she complained of side effects of warfarin, including tingling sensation and numbness of legs, urticaria, skin rash, and nausea and voluntarily stopped taking medication. In December 2018, she was admitted to the emergency room due to ongoing chest pain. Coronary angiogram revealed embolic myocardial infarction at the left circumflex coronary artery. Nevertheless, she continued to refuse to take warfarin after anticoagulant therapy for coronary artery embolism. Given the patient's objection, we prescribed apixaban 5 mg b.i.d. since February 2019. When she was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation in April 2020, no intracardiac thrombosis was confirmed on computed tomography and electrical cardioversion was performed safely. While on apixaban, no evidence of prosthetic valve thrombosis or thrombo-embolic events was observed during a 24-month period.

Conclusion

We report the efficacy and safety of apixaban in a patient with atrial fibrillation and double mechanical heart valves for preventing prosthetic valve thrombus and systemic embolism.

SUBMITTER: Eom JY

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8343445 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Apixaban effectively lowers the risk of ischemic stroke and systemic embolism in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation. Systemic exposure to a given apixaban dose depends on multiple clearance pathways. Though routine quantification of direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) in neurological emergency situations has not been widely established, suspected associations of DOAC peak concentrations with bleeding events and DOAC trough concentrations with efficacy and safety suggest that such information might support clinical decision making. CASE PRESENTATION:We describe the case of a 75?year-old woman with atrial fibrillation maintained on apixaban who was admitted due to suspected acute stroke. Clinical work-up did not confirm ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke but routine quantification of apixaban revealed an excessively high apixaban plasma concentration (~?3?h after the last drug intake: 1100?ng/ml (expected range: 91-321?ng/ml); ~?12?h after drug intake: 900?ng/ml (expected range: 41-230?ng/ml)) and a substantially prolonged elimination half-life (~?31?h). The corresponding apixaban concentration-to-dose ratio was 9900 (ng/ml)/(mg/kg/d) and 8100 (ng/ml)/(mg/kg/d), respectively (expected range: 249-463 (ng/ml)/(mg/kg/d)). Renal function was only moderately impaired (creatinine 1.36?mg/dl (0.5-1.1?mg/dl), creatinine clearance 40?ml/min). Genotype analyses revealed that the patient was a CYP3A5*3/*3 non-expressor, a heterozygous carrier of the ABCG2 c.421C/A alleles, and a homozygous carrier of ABCB1 c.2677?T/T and ABCB1 c.3435?T/T. In the absence of known drug interactions explaining apixaban clearance impairment, excessive apixaban concentrations were most probably caused by moderate renal impairment combined with multiple functional polymorphisms of apixaban clearance pathways. CONCLUSIONS:This case suggests that concurrent genetic polymorphisms can impair multiple apixaban elimination pathways and thus substantially increase its exposure.