How Does the Drug Warfarin Works

Some medical conditions require thinning of the blood in order to prevent formation of dangerous blood clots in veins and arteries, which can be life-threatening. These medical conditions range from atrial fibrillation that causes irregular heartbeat; to mechanical heart valve and after a heart attack. (National Institutes of Health, 2013).

Cardiovascular diseases can encourage the formation of intravascular clots-inside blood vessels, especially if the latter are being damaged by arteriosclerosis which is the hardening of the arteries that occurs at old age. When arteries are damaged, resistance to blood flow increase so platelets tend to stick together as the blood circulation goes slower. The formation of a blood clot inside an unbroken vessel can potentially travel in the bloodstream targeting a smaller vessel thus blocking the blood flow to a vital organ; this condition is known as embolism and it is a medical emergency. As a preventative measure, patients who are at high risk of developing intravascular blood clots as a result of all of the above mentioned conditions are often prescribed a pharmaceutical drug called “Warfarin”. This drug belongs to a class of drugs called anticoagulants, or blood thinners. (Tortora & Derrickson, 2011).

The chemical structure of the drug and its systematic name are the following:

4hydroxy-3-(3-oxo-1-phenylbutyl)-2H-chromen-2-one.

(Royal Society of Chemistry, 2013).

Gerard J. Tortora and Bryan Derrickson explained that the drug Warfarin antagonises the effects of vitamin K which is produced naturally by the Bacteria that live in the large intestine; Vitamin K plays a major role in blood clotting. The anticoagulant drug ‘Warfarin’...