Gastric mucosal bleeding after unfractionated and low molecular weight heparin in rats

Abstract

The bleeding from an induced gastric mucosal lesion was monitored after intravenous administration of unfractionated heparin and enoxaparin, a low molecular weight heparin. The gastric mucosa was exposed in a chamber, which was superfused with saline and emptied at 1-min intervals for quantitation of bleeding. Both heparins prolonged the bleeding time and increased the blood loss dose-dependently. Five to ten times higher doses of enoxaparin (in terms of anti-Xa units) were required to achieve similar prolongation of the bleeding times as with unfractionated heparin. The results indicate a more favourable antihaemostatic effect of enoxaparin than of unfractionated heparin.