Study: Head injury patients on blood thinners should have repeat CT scans.

In continuing coverage, HealthDay (1/20, Preidt) reports, "People taking blood thinners who suffer a minor head injury should undergo repeat CT scans," according to a study in the journal Annals of Emergency Medicine. In a study of "87 patients taking warfarin...who were treated for a minor head injury at an emergency department," researchers found that "twenty-four hours after having a negative result on their first ct scan, hemorrhage lesions were seen in five of the patients on a repeat CT scan" and "two other patients who were discharged from hospital after two negative CT scans were later readmitted to the hospital for treatment of symptomatic subdural hematoma."

        MedPage Today (1/20, Phend) reports, "The strongest predictor of delayed bleeding in their study was a high international normalized ratio (INR) value over 3 at admission, which predicted 14-fold higher risk of delayed bleeding (95% CI 4 to 49)." However, "the researchers cautioned that their study was conduced at a single center study population and was underpowered for multivariate analysis. They warned against generalizing their findings to patients with a Glasgow Coma Score of 14 or worse or to those on concomitant antiplatelet therapy, groups that were not included in the study."