Author:
Kommu Sharath,Arepally Shalini
Abstract
Venous thromboembolism (VTE) imposes a significant health care burden. Anticoagulation remains the mainstay of treatment for VTE. For decades, warfarin has been the oral anticoagulant of choice for the medical management of VTE; however, the scope and options for managing VTE have been gradually expanding. The coagulation cascade is a complex sequence of steps, and newer agents that act at different levels on this coagulation cascade have been developed. In the past decade, direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) have proven to be the up-and-coming alternatives as oral agents in the medical management of VTE and have gradually become the first-line agents. Understanding their mechanism of action, uses, advantages, and disadvantages over other anticoagulants will be discussed in the scope of this chapter.