Post-polypectomy bleeding in hot-snare polypectomy of colonic polyps under continued warfarin or short interruption of direct oral anticoagulants.

BACKGROUND: Newly published guidelines of the Japanese Gastroenterological Endoscopy Society (JGES) suggest to consider endoscopic procedures with high risk of bleeding without stopping warfarin and with stopping direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) only on the day of the procedure. In this study, we aimed to test the validity of these recommendations.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed medical records of 344 patients with anticoagulant therapy who underwent hot-snare polypectomy between January 2012 and October 2018. Patients (n = 132) with interruption of anticoagulants (3-7 days for warfarin and 2-3 days for DOACs before the procedure) and without heparin-bridging were excluded. Among the remaining 212 patients, the incidence of post-polypectomy bleeding was compared between the following 2 patient groups: patients who had interruption of anticoagulants with heparin-bridging (HB group, n = 139) and patients treated according to the new JGES guideline (FG group, n = 73).

RESULTS: The rate of post-polypectomy bleeding (PPB) in FG group (9.6%) was not significantly different from that in HB group (12.9%, p = 0.5). In subgroup analysis, the incidence of bleeding in patients with warfarin (12.2%) and with DOAC (6.3%) in FG group was not significantly different from corresponding figures in HB group (14.2%, 0%). In multivariate analysis, number of resected polyps was associated with PPB, but the administration of anticoagulants according to the new guidelines was not a significant risk factor for PPB (p = .98).

CONCLUSIONS: Our study affirms the recommendations of JGES for the management of anticoagulants in patients who undergo colonic polypectomy regarding post-polypectomy bleeding.