Should you stop anti-clotting drugs before a procedure?
Millions of people with cardiovascular disease take drugs that help prevent blood clots, which can lodge in a vessel and choke off part of the blood supply to a leg, a lung, or the brain. These potentially lifesaving medications, known generally as anticoagulants, include warfarin (Coumadin) and a class of drugs called non–vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants, or NOACs (see "Anti-clotting drugs: The old and the new").
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