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Study Objective: Enoxaparin is standard of care for venous thromboembolism (VTE) prophylaxis in adult trauma patients, but fixed‐dose protocols are suboptimal. Dosing based on body mass index (BMI) or total body weight (TBW) improves target prophylactic anti‐Xa level attainment and reduces VTE rates. A novel strategy using estimated blood volume (EBV) may be more effective based on results of a single‐center study. This study compared BMI‐, TBW‐, EBV‐based, and hybrid enoxaparin dosing strategies at achieving target prophylactic anti‐Factor Xa (anti‐Xa) levels in trauma patients. Design: Multicenter, retrospective review. Data Source: Electronic health records from participating institutions. Patients: Adult trauma patients who received enoxaparin twice daily for VTE prophylaxis and had at least one appropriately timed anti‐Xa level (collected 3 to 6 hours after the previous dose after three consecutive doses) from January 2017 through December 2020. Patients were excluded if the hospital‐specific dosing protocol was not followed or if they had thermal burns with > 20% body surface area involvement. Intervention: Dosing strategy used to determine initial prophylactic dose of enoxaparin. Measurements: The primary end point was percentage of patients with peak anti‐Xa levels within the target prophylactic range (0.2‐0.4 units/mL). Main Results: Nine hospitals enrolled 742 unique patients. The most common dosing strategy was based on BMI (43.0%), followed by EBV (29.0%). Patients dosed using EBV had the highest percentage of target anti‐Xa levels (72.1%). Multiple logistic regression demonstrated EBV‐based dosing was significantly more likely to yield anti‐Xa levels at or above target compared to BMI‐based dosing (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 3.59, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.29‐5.62, p < 0.001). EBV‐based dosing was also more likely than hybrid dosing to yield an anti‐Xa level at or above target (aOR 2.30, 95% CI 1.33‐3.98, p = 0.003). Other pairwise comparisons between dosing strategy groups were nonsignificant. Conclusions: An EBV‐based dosing strategy was associated with higher odds of achieving anti‐Xa level within target range for enoxaparin VTE prophylaxis compared to BMI‐based dosing and may be a preferred method for VTE prophylaxis in adult trauma patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author responds to questions on heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT), its diagnosis and treatment. She states that HIT is an adverse event associated with the use of unfractionated heparin (UFH) and low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH). The author refers to the "four Ts' system that helps in making an appropriate diagnosis. She advises that on the detection of HIT, the first step is to discontinue and avoid all heparin products.

The article offers information on phenytoin the generic of Dilantin and Phenytek, is a drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for seizure management in adults and children in 1953. It states that clinicians should consider higher doses of phenytoin to overweight patients. Its dosages and side effects are also discussed.