Use of gelatin haemostatic matrices in patients with intraparenchymal haemorrhage and drug-induced coagulopathy.

Abstract In the routine practice of neurosurgery, the attainment of an appropriate haemostasis during and after surgery is of the utmost importance. In the last few years, we have noticed that in several cases the standard coagulation methods (bipolar, Tabotamp, Spongostan) were not sufficient; in particular, patients with intraparenchymal haemorrhage under anticoagulant or antiplatelet therapy were observed to be the most difficult haemostasis cases, and thus those most frequently subjected to gelatin haemostatic matrices. We report our trial on 57 patients under anticoagulant or antiplatelet therapy and with intraparenchymal haemorrhage in which gelatin haemostatic matrices were used. The excellent results both in terms of outcome and decreased bleeding allow for regarding such a practice as safe and reproducible in these cases.