Arixtra PE Study- Outpatient Management of Stable Acute Pulmonary Embolism: Once Daily Subcutaneous Fondaparinux

The current standard therapy for Acute Pulmonary Embolism (APE) involves admitting patients to the hospital for administration of parenteral anticoagulation therapy(Unfractionated Heparin, Low Molecular Weight Heparin, or Fondaparinux) as a bridge to oral Vitamin K Antagonists (warfarin{Coumadin}). There is a group of patients who are low risk for adverse events and thus may be amenable to outpatient management. Newly identified cardio-specific biomarkers, such as cardiac troponins (TNT and cTnI) and brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) offer added diagnostic information that has been shown to help risk stratify patients presenting with APE. Use of the biomarkers could help separate low- from high-risk subjects, particularly the subgroup of patients who, despite hemodynamic stability at presentation, carry the highest risk of adverse events. Once a low risk APE group is identified, a less complex and less resource-intensive but equally efficacious and safe treatment which allows earlier discharge would be desirable. The current reference therapy is intravenous unfractionated heparin (UFH) for initial anticoagulation for a minimum of 4-5 days of overlap and until therapeutic INR is achieved. Although low-molecular weight heparins (LMWH) have been widely used for DVT treatment, their use for patients with APE is limited to inpatient administration. Fondaparinux sodium (Arixtra) is a synthetic and specific inhibitor of activated Factor X(Xa). Several studies have shown that fondaparinux was more effective than enoxaparin when used as a venous thromboembolism (VTE) prophylaxis agent. Additionally, in the published literature to date, there are no reported cases of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) syndrome proven to be caused by fondaparinux. Fondaparinux is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of acute pulmonary embolism when administered in conjunction with warfarin sodium when initial therapy is administered in the hospital. By means of a non-randomized, open label pilot study, we seek to prospectively assess the safety and efficacy of outpatient treatment using fondaparinux and oral Vitamin K antagonists (warfarin) in patients with stable acute pulmonary embolus and validate risk stratification criteria for predicting patient suitability for outpatient therapy of acute pulmonary embolism.