Vaskulárna medicína 1/2019

Pharmacological characteristics of apixaban

Apixaban belongs to the oral, highly-selective, reversible and direct inhibitors of the activated coagulation factor X (FXa), which represents the final molecule of the extrinsic and intrinsic part of the coagulation cascade. This direct oral anticoagulant (DOAC) is immediately released from its peroral form, has linear pharmacokinetics, good biological availability, as well as quick onset and offset of action. Apixaban has several convenient properties including predictable pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, low number of the drug and food interactions and relatively wide therapeutic window. Globally, as there are many articles reporting the safety and efficacy and assessing the occurence of thrombosis and bleeding episodes during the development of the the drug, the authors decided to sum up knowledge about its metabolism, pharmacological characteristics and drug interactions essential for the evaluation of its dosing especially in high-risk patient groups

Keywords: apixaban, direct oral anticoagulants, metabolism, pharmacological characteristics, drug interactions