Taking a daily aspirin and/or prescription medicine to prevent blood clotting does not appear to cause a significant risk of bleeding during and after cataract surgery.
That’s the finding of a new study in Japan that assessed the risk for bleeding during and after phacoemulsification cataract removal among patients taking anti-platelet and/or anti-coagulant medicines (blood thinners) to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke.
In the study, a total of 355 patients taking aspirin, the prescription anti-clotting drug warfarin (brand name: Coumadin) or both underwent modern phacoemulsification cataract surgery.
Patients were randomly assigned to two groups: 182 patients discontinued their anti-clotting medicine at least one week prior to cataract surgery (discontinuation group) and 173 patients continued taking aspirin and/or warfarin up to the day of their cataract surgery (maintenance group).
All patients were followed for a period of one month after surgery to monitor visual outcomes and any cataract surgery complications.
Results of the study included:
- No eyes in either group had significant bleeding during cataract surgery.
- Minor post-surgical bleeding occurred in seven eyes (2.5 percent) in the discontinuation group and in 11 eyes (4.0 percent) in the maintenance group.
- A total of 31 eyes (10.8 percent) in the discontinuation group and 47 eyes (16.5 percent) in the maintenance group experienced a subconjunctival hemorrhage after cataract surgery.
- Vision improvement following surgery was comparable in the two groups.
The researchers concluded that though patients taking blood thinners up to the time of cataract surgery were more likely to experience a subconjunctival hemorrhage following surgery than those who discontinued their medications one week prior to surgery, there was no significant difference between the two groups in the incidence of cataract surgery complications or in visual outcomes following surgery.
A full report of the study appears in the July 2010 issue of Journal of Cataract & Refractive Surgery.
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