Background: Atrial fibrillation leads to increased risk of systemic embolism (SE) and stroke. To decrease the occurrence of stroke/SE, anticoagulation is routinely prescribed. Recently, non-vitamin K anticoagulants like apixaban and rivaroxaban have become more popular and are preferred over warfarin. We here compare the efficacy and safety of apixaban with warfarin. Methods: Eligible participants were [...]

Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a very common condition which usually requires anticoagulation (AC). There are very clear indications of when to initiate AC but recommendations regarding bridging during elective surgery are not very clear. We here tried to answer this important question by calculating the risk of bleeding and stroke/systemic embolism (SE). Methods: We [...]

Case Presentation: A 76 year-old male with a history of diverticulitis, T2DM, HTN, persistent atrial fibrillation and compensated alcoholic cirrhosis presented for recurrent gastrointestinal bleeding (GIB). He initially presented to an outside hospital six months prior for shortness of breath and found to be anemic requiring 4 units of packed red blood cells (PRBCs). Since [...]

Case Presentation: A 49-year-old male with past medical history of anxiety, chronic diarrhea and alcohol dependency presented with blood-tinged emesis. The patient endorsed a three-week history of non-bilious, blood-streaked emesis after ingestion of both solids and liquids. He also endorsed a cough productive of blood-streaked sputum and easy bruising. He was a retired librarian. He [...]

Case Presentation: A 39-year-old Bulgarian man, recently diagnosed with non ischemic cardiomyopathy was transferred to our hospital due to upper gastrointestinal bleeding. The patient reports seven months of intermittent hematemesis that worsened after two significant episodes of vomiting bright red blood. The patient became hemodynamically unstable in spite of aggressive fluid resuscitation and blood transfusion, [...]