For Patients on Blood Thinners, GI Bleeding May Signal Colon Cancer

Gastrointestinal bleeding in sufferers taking blood thinners for an irregular heartbeat must prompt medical doctors to test for colon cancer, a new study advises.

Researchers looked at extra than 125,000 patients in Denmark with the heart rhythm ailment atrial fibrillation (a-fib). They suggested that people with gastrointestinal bleeding were 11 to 24 times much more likely than others to be diagnosed with colon cancer.

The look at was published Feb. 7 inside the European Heart Journal.

Between 4% and 8% of a-fib sufferers who had bleeding inside the decrease GI tract were recognized with colon cancer, as compared to less than 1% of those with out bleeding, stated observe leader Peter Vibe Rasmussen of the Department of Cardiology at Herlev-Gentofte University Hospital, a part of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

“Our findings underline the crucial factor that sufferers with gastrointestinal bleeding need to usually be provided meticulous clinical examination, irrespective of whether or no longer they’re taking anticoagulants. It must now not be dismissed as a mere outcome of anticoagulant treatment,” Rasmussen stated in a journal information release.

He said educating patients is a need to as quickly as they begin taking blood thinners.

“We must inform them that in the event that they see blood in their stools they should always seek advice from their doctor,” Vibe Rasmussen said. “Timely exam should potentially offer early detection of [colon] cancer.”

Patients with a-fib regularly take blood thinners, along with warfarin, dabigatran, rivaroxaban and apixaban, to save you clots that can motive a stroke. But bleeding from the GI tract can be a side effect in a small percent of those sufferers.

There is not any evidence that blood thinners purpose colon cancer.

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