Mohammed Alessa1,
Jawaher Gramish2,
Hind Almodaimegh2,
Moteb A Khobrani3,
Lori Hornsby4,
Abdullah A Alhifany5 
For correspondence:- Abdullah Alhifany Email: aahifany@uqu.edu.sa Tel:+966555521820
Accepted: 22 December 2020 Published: 31 January 2021
Citation: Alessa M, Gramish J, Almodaimegh H, Khobrani MA, Hornsby L, Alhifany AA. Utilization of adjusted body weight for dosing unfractionated heparin in obese patients with venous thromboembolism: A retrospective matched cohort study. Trop J Pharm Res 2021; 20(1):191-195 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v20i1.27
© 2021 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..
Purpose: To evaluate the effectiveness of adjusted body weight (AjBW)-based dosing of unfractionated heparin (UFH) in obese patients vis a vis actual body weight (ABW)-based dosing in non-obese patients with venous thromboembolism (VTE).
Methods: A retrospective chart review was conducted for obese and non-obese patients initiated on UFH for treating VTE from September 2013 to December 2014. Patients were excluded from the study if they were under 18 years old, developed heparin-induced thrombocytopenia during treatment, received thrombolytic therapy prior to UFH, or received UFH at a dose that did not follow the institution’s protocol. The primary objective was to assess the efficacy of dosing UFH based on AjBW in achieving a therapeutic activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) within the first 24 h in obese patients, in comparison to the standard ABW-dosing for non-obese.
Results: Of the 57 patients included in the study, 27 patients (47.4 %) were obese, and 30 patients (52.6 %) were non-obese; 16 (59.25 %) of the obese patients achieved a therapeutic aPTT within the first 24 h of AjBW-based dosed UFH, while 18 (60 %) of the non-obese patients achieved a therapeutic aPTT within the first 24 h of ABW-based dosed UFH (p = 0.45).
Conclusion: AjBW-based dosing of UFH in obese patients demonstrates comparable efficacy to ABW-based dosing in non-obese patients.
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