Development of a concept for a personalized approach in the perioperative antiplatelet therapy administration/discontinuation management based on multiple electrode aggregometry in patients undergoing coronary artery surgery

In patients undergoing coronary artery surgery, improvements in clinical outcomes currently rely on continued refinements of the surgical technique and modulation of adjuvant pharmacotherapy. Despite medical and technological advances, negligible rate of bleeding and ischemic events still persist necessitating further improvements in patient management. Platelet function testing (PFT) might play an important role in meticulous balancing between the risk of bleeding and thrombotic events. A suitable balance can be achieved by implementing a personalized, PFT based approach in antiplatelet therapy (APT) administration/discontinuation management. Despite emerging evidence on the widespread variability in platelet inhibitory response to APT, numerous PFT devices and heterogeneity in reporting study results hamper pooling of the evidence which in turn results with a lack of consensus in “on treatment” platelet reactivity associated with ischemic and bleeding events in perioperative phase. The literature on multiple electrode aggregometry (Multiplate ® ; Roche Diagnostics, Mannheim, Germany) in coronary artery disease patients was reviewed systematically. Based on the evidence evaluating the relationship between “drug specific” PFT and bleeding or adverse ischemic events, we sought to define therapeutic window for the most commonly administered antiplatelet drugs such as aspirin (ASPI test) and adenosine-diphosphate receptor blockers (ADP test). Preoperatively, APT administration was primarily focused to avoid bleeding complications. ASPI test value of 20 AUC and ADP test value of <73 AUC were set as cut-off values that delineate bleeding tendency. Postoperatively, “therapeutic window” was set to avoid both bleeding and adverse ischemic events. Therapeutic ranges were as follows: 20 AUC < ASPItest ≤ 30 AUC and 19AUC < ADP ≤ 46AUC, respectively. This is the first attempt to define PFT based “therapeutic window” according to, perioperative APT administration/discontinuation management would be targeted. It seems that the “one-size-fits-all” concept of perioperative APT administration management is outdated and further development of PFT based, personalized APT administration/discontinuation management is desirable. This concept therefore presents a possible step forward in patient care and provides a platform for further interventional trials whereby the impact of its application on clinical outcomes would be validated.