Oral Antiplatelet Agents in Dialysis Patients: Friends or Foes?

Thrombotic cardiovascular events are one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality in dialysis patients [1] and vascular access thrombosis remains the Achilles’ heel for patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis (HD) [2]. HD and uremia are characterized by two simultaneous but opposite hematological abnormalities: a thrombotic predisposition and a bleeding tendency mainly due to impaired platelet-platelet and platelet-vessel wall interactions [3-5].