Early-stage Diagnosis of Bladder Carcinoma by a Clinical Pharmacist's Effective Anti-coagulation Service in a Patient with Anticoagulation Therapy: a Clinical Case Report

항응고제 투여 환자에서 약사의 효과적인 ACS를 통한 방광암 조기발견 사례

  • An, Sung-Shim (Department of Pharmacy, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea) ;
  • Bang, Joon-Seok (Department of Pharmacy, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea) ;
  • La, Hyen-Oh (Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea)
  • 안성심 (가톨릭대학교 서울성모병원 약제부) ;
  • 방준석 (가톨릭대학교 서울성모병원 약제부) ;
  • 나현오 (가톨릭대학교 의과대학 약리학교실)
  • Received : 2010.03.28
  • Accepted : 2010.04.12
  • Published : 2010.06.30

Abstract

Recently, the prevalence of bladder cancer is increasing in the Korean society. As the risk factors of bladder carcinoma are variable, the early-stage diagnosis is regarded the best preventive practice. Hematuria is a specific sign of the malignancy as well as a kind of various medication-related adverse reactions. Some anti-coagulation therapy can cause bleedings including hematuria to the patients with cardiovascular diseases such as paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF). Therefore, to the clinical pharmacists working in the anti-coagulation services (ACS), a closer monitoring of patients can give an opportunity to find certain ailments unexpectedly. In this case, a patient with PAF had episodes of sporadic hematuria in the course of warfarin therapy even though with its low levels of INR. An ACS pharmacist found a discrepancy between the bleeding symptoms and INR values, and recommended properly the patient to refer urologist. Fortunately, an early-stage of bladder carcinoma was found then followed by an excision performed to the lesion. Therefore, alert-minded and precise monitoring done by ACS pharmacist could optimize the therapeutic outcomes as well as increase the quality of life of the patient.

Keywords

References

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