Study on incidence of bleeding in hospitalized patients after antithrombotic therapy at a tertiary care hospital.

Objectives: To monitor the different antithrombotic drug combinations, determine the incidence, magnitude of bleeding and the association of HAS-BLED risk scoring schema with the magnitude of bleeding as defined using TIMI bleeding criteria.
Methods: A prospective observational study in a cohort of patients for a period of 8 months, at one of the tertiary care center-Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad, was conducted. Consecutive patients were enrolled and followed from the date of admission till the adverse events are perceived/date of discharge. Pearson Correlation Statistics (Fisher's z Transformation) is applied to assess the association between HAS-BLED risk factors and the total risk score with bleeding criteria.
Results: A total of 400 cases were collected during the 8-month study period, of which 372 satisfied the inclusion criteria. Among them 34 (9.1%) bleeding cases were reported with mean (+/- SD) age of 57.8 (+/- 14.19) years. Bleeding occurred mostly in males 79.4% and a HAS-BLED Score of > or = 3 has been observed in 67.6% (n = 23) patients out of 34 bled patients. Two antiplatelets + One anticoagulant is the most common combination which caused bleeding in 41.2% (n = 14). Stroke history, bleeding predisposition, labile INR's are the HAS-BLED risk factors which are significant (< 0.05) with the TIMI Bleeding Criteria.
Conclusion: There was a linear correlation between the HAS-BLED risk score and the TIMI bleeding criteria-higher the risk score the more frequent is the incidence of major bleeding. A HAS-BLED risk score of > or = 3 is associated with TIMI major bleeding.