Alteplase/Heparins Interactions
This information is generalized and not intended as specific medical advice. Consult your healthcare professional before taking or discontinuing any drug or commencing any course of treatment.
Medical warning:
Serious. These medicines may interact and cause very harmful effects. Contact your healthcare professional (e.g. doctor or pharmacist) for more information.
How the interaction occurs:
Both alteplase and heparin decrease your body's ability to make blood clots.
What might happen:
You may experience an increased chance for bleeding including bleeding from your gums, nosebleeds, unusual bruising, dark stools, or bleeding from injection sites.
What you should do about this interaction:
Alteplase is a medicine that is used in a hospital to treat strokes, heart attacks, and blood clots in the lungs. Heparin is also used in hospitals to treat and prevent blood clots. If you need to be treated for a stroke and you have received heparin in the previous two days, your doctor may want to use a different medicine instead of alteplase. If you need to be treated for a heart attack or a blood clot in your lungs and you have received heparin in the previous two days, your doctor will need to monitor you more closely. Be sure to let your healthcare professionals (e.g. doctor or pharmacist) know what medicines you are taking.Your healthcare professionals may already be aware of this interaction and may be monitoring you for it. Do not start, stop, or change the dosage of any medicine before checking with them first.
- 1.Activase (alteplase, recombinant) US prescribing information. Genentech, Inc. February, 2018.
- 2.Powers WJ, Rabinstein AA, Ackerson T, Adeoye OM, Bambakidis NC. Guidelines for the Early Management of Patients With Acute Ischemic Stroke: 2019 Update to the 2018 Guidelines for the Early Management of Acute Ischemic Stroke: A Guideline for Healthcare Professionals From the AHA/ASA. Stroke 2019 Dec;50(12):e344-e418.
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CONDITIONS OF USE: The information in this database is intended to supplement, not substitute for, the expertise and judgment of healthcare professionals. The information is not intended to cover all possible uses, directions, precautions, drug interactions or adverse effects, nor should it be construed to indicate that use of a particular drug is safe, appropriate or effective for you or anyone else. A healthcare professional should be consulted before taking any drug, changing any diet or commencing or discontinuing any course of treatment.