Medical Use
Heparin is a naturally occurring anticoagulant produced by basophils and mast cells. Heparin acts as an anticoagulant, preventing the formation of clots and extension of existing clots within the blood. While heparin does not break down clots that have already formed (unlike tissue plasminogen activator), it allows the body's natural clot lysis mechanisms to work normally to break down clots that have formed. Heparin is generally used for anticoagulation for the following conditions:
- Acute coronary syndrome, e.g., NSTEMI
- Atrial fibrillation
- Deep-vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism
- Cardiopulmonary bypass for heart surgery.
- ECMO circuit for extracorporeal life support
- Hemofiltration
- Indwelling central or peripheral venous catheters
Read more about this topic: Heparin
Famous quotes containing the word medical:
“There may perhaps be a new generation of doctors horrified by lacerations, infections, women who have douched with kitchen cleanser. What an irony it would be if fanatics continued to kill and yet it was the apathy and silence of the medical profession that most wounded the ability to provide what is, after all, a medical procedure.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to speak of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But we do not do so; and that reason is that we know well what is the object of mathematics, and that it consists in proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it consists in healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object of poetry.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)