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full article:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/new-health/health-news/hospitals-shun-cheap-drug-used-to-stop-bleeding/article2430657/
May 11, 2012
Hospitals shun cheap drug used to stop bleeding
By LISA PRIEST
Globe and Mail Update
Used by armies on battlefield, generic TXA costs $8 and could save 217 Canadians yearly
The first use should be be the paramedics and the prehospital providers in the field. The CRASH-2 proves that the most effective time for administration is before 3 hours post injury, with a significant benefit if started within the first hour.
We have it in the CF and it will be coming to the Med Techs soon, but it is surprising how few MOs outside of the trauma world have heard of it.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/new-health/health-news/hospitals-shun-cheap-drug-used-to-stop-bleeding/article2430657/
May 11, 2012
Hospitals shun cheap drug used to stop bleeding
By LISA PRIEST
Globe and Mail Update
Used by armies on battlefield, generic TXA costs $8 and could save 217 Canadians yearly
One of the cheapest medical interventions to help stop bleeding - an $8 generic drug by the name of tranexamic acid (or TXA) - is rarely used by Canadian hospitals, even though it could save hundreds of trauma patients each year.
TXA has been sold for years over the counter in Britain to women with heavy menstrual bleeding and also in Japan to those with sore throats. It is believed to work by blocking plasmin, an enzyme that dissolves blood clots. The World Health Organization added it to its essential drugs list last year, and British and American armies have adopted it. Canada went a step further, deploying it with medics in the battlefield.
Ian Roberts, clinical trials director for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and leader of a 2010 Crash-2 trial for TXA, has found that the drug could save an estimated 217 lives in Canada each year, if provided within three hours. And it can be done at a remarkably low cost: $8 per patient, or $12 if you throw in the tubing and IV needle required to infuse the drug.
Yet despite saving Canadian lives on the battlefield, the drug has been adopted slowly in Canada's emergency wards. Figures from IMS Health Brogan, a private company that tracks prescription drug spending, show sales of TXA to Canadian hospitals has actually dipped slightly, from $7-million in 2009 to $6.9-million in 2011.
The first use should be be the paramedics and the prehospital providers in the field. The CRASH-2 proves that the most effective time for administration is before 3 hours post injury, with a significant benefit if started within the first hour.
We have it in the CF and it will be coming to the Med Techs soon, but it is surprising how few MOs outside of the trauma world have heard of it.