Crazy Coumadin

Widely used blood thinner warfarin will come with new instructions explaining that people with certain genes may need a lower dose to take the drug safely, U.S. health officials said on Thursday.

The change is part of a move toward personalized medicine in which doctors tailor treatment based on genetic makeup, the Food and Drug Administration said.

More.

I'm not sure of the cost effectiveness of a genetic test to figure out a dose of coumadin. When the medication is started in the hospital, with daily PT/INR monitoring, and reasonable dosing, patients really shouldn't become hypertherapeutic.

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Artifical Blood

From The Guardian:

We're all familiar with the calls for blood donors. But donated blood, while valuable, also poses risks to the recipient, including diseases such as hepatitis C or HHIV, the virus that causes Aids.

Wouldn't an artificial form be better? It could be made completely sterile, and might even be manufactured in dehydrated form: just add water and you have a litre of O negative, the universally transfusible version, which could be easily transported to locations where it was needed, or stored against future need.

We say: With the perpetual shortage of blood out there, artificial PRBC's would be welcomed at hospitals around the world. A stable product like this that could be stored at room temperature with a long shelf life would even be of greater benefit to the harsh conditions of battlefield medicine, or the third world. There's a lot of potential here, but let's recall that this has been a tough nut to crack, and I'm sure there is a lot more research needed here.

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