Effectiveness of oral Tranexamic acid administration on blood loss after knee artroplasty: a randomized clinical trial

Abstract

Introduction: Some studies have proved that Tranexamic acid infusion is associated with a decrease in blood loss during and after surgery. Due to the availability of an oral form of the drug, the rapid and complete absorption of it and ease of administration without need for specific instruments, we evaluated the effectiveness of the oral form in decreasing blood loss after total knee arthroplasty.

Materials and methods: In this double-blind, randomized, parallel clinical trial study, we evaluated 53 patients undergoing knee arthroplasty admitted to Ghaem hospital, Mashhad in 2012. Patients with any history of severe ischemic heart diseases, renal failure, cirrhosis, history of bleeding disorders or thromboembolic events, were excluded from the study. The patients were randomly allocated into 27 patients with and 26 patients without Tranexamic acid. Blood loss (mL) at 12 and at 24h and hematocrit at 24h were measured postoperatively. The results were analyzed with SPSS software (11.5 version) using independent and paired sample t-tests. A p-value ≤ 0.05 was considered to be significant.

Results: The average blood loss after 12h of surgery in the control and Tranexamic acid groups were 462.9 (± 147.4) and 274.6 (± 139)mL, respectively (p<0.001) and after 24h of surgery they were 588.8 (± 193)and 364 (± 165.1)mL, respectively (p<0.001). The mean decrease in the hematocrit after surgery was 4.7% in the Tranexamic acid group and 6.8% in the control group (p=0.016).

Conclusion: Prescription of oral Tranexamic acid before knee arthroplasty can cause remarkable decrease in blood loss after surgery and also less decrease in hematocrit. The advantages of the oral route of the drug versus the intravenous form is that it can be used routinely as a safe and effective way to decrease bleeding after surgery.

Keywords: Bleeding; Knee arthroplasty; Oral Tranexamic acid.