Tranexamic acid needs a make over

Tranexamic acid and CRASH-2

I was listening to the EMCRIT podcast today. As usual, it was absolutely excellent, but on this occasion, it was especially superb as Scott Weingart was joined by the wonderful Prof. Tim Coates from Leicester. Tim is an inspiring EM researcher and speaker who also happens to be largely responsible for one of the largest RCTs in Emergency Medicine history; CRASH-2. Now, this is no time to go over CRASH-2 again. The bottom line is that tranexamic acid is both cheap and fabulous for the treatment of major trauma patients.

We should give it, we should pretty much always give it and neither he nor I know why clinicians have not adopted it as widely as it should. Actually, that’s not entirely true, I have a theory and that is that it’s just not ‘cool’ as a treatment.

TXA just isn’t cool

What do I mean by ‘cool’? Well it’s just a feeling really based on practicing medicine for many years. When new treatments come into practice we clinicians (and especially EPs with our love of shiny things), love them to be exciting, difficult, even perhaps dangerous. Think of the excitement around stroke thrombolysis in previous posts that seems to based on little evidence. That requires CT scans, expert opinions, senior input, expensive therapies and in our neck of the woods transfer to another facility. It’s difficult, it’s expensive, it’s dangerous….it’s ‘cool’.

Tranexemic acid is not cool. It’s dirt cheap and can be given by any doc in our department.

Just as aspirin used to get missed in the rush for thrombolysis for MI (in the days before PCI) we are now missing TXA in the rush for Whole Body CT, Shock packs and advanced transfusion management. I see history and wonder what we can do to help.

So, how do we make TXA cool? I sometimes think that if I lock it in the controlled drugs cupboard next to the tPA and the Ketamine then tell everyone that it’s potentially fatal and scare them half to death it might get used more often. Perhaps if someone raised the price to £500 a shot we might think of it more often? Obviously that’s ludicrous but we need to do something.

TXA needs a make over, any ideas?

…….but what else? Where do we go next with TXA? If it works in major trauma then what about other bleeding disorders? What will CRASH-3 which will look at TXA in head trauma tell us?  Then what might CRASH-x tell us in the future? Who knows but I was quite surprised to see that there is already evidence out there for it’s potential use in GI Bleeding in this BestBet from the Royal London Hospital. Not convincing but promising enough for consideration in the future?

I think so.

Simon Carley