The Role of Antifibrinolytic Drugs in Veterinary Medicine

"Antifibrinolytics are drugs that stabilize clots, and their role in veterinary medicine is still relatively new," says Kendon Kuo, DVM, MS, DACVECC, assistant clinical professor at the Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine. "We don't know exactly their limit or what we can do with them.

They're really popular right now in human medicine for trauma patients. And so, for trauma patients that get hit by a car, they'll try to give this in the ambulance even before making it to the hospital. We've been using it for trauma patients, for patients that are bleeding, you know, if they have a spleen with a mass that ruptures we'll give this drug to hopefully stop the amount of bleeding, maybe buy time. Sometimes we can avoid going to surgery if necessary.

So, I think the exciting thing about antifibrinolytics is they're relatively cheap. Anytime we can use a medication and ultimately save money, avoid blood transfusions, avoid surgery, I think veterinarians should be excited to have that in their toolbox."