Background and Aim
Oral anticoagulants are risk factors for post‐endoscopic resection bleeding. We aimed to conduct a systematic review and meta‐analysis for the risks of post‐procedural bleeding (PPB) for direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) and warfarin following endoscopic resection.
Methods
Two independent reviewers searched PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and Cochrane Library. The Newcastle–Ottawa Scale score was used to assess the quality of the studies, the pooled odds ratio (OR) to present PPB results, and the funnel plots to assess publication bias. The Higgins I2 statistic was employed to determine the variation across studies due to heterogeneity.
Results
We reviewed 30 articles. PPB occurred in 586 patients on DOACs and 1782 on warfarin. The patients on DOACs had a significantly lower overall risk of PPB compared with those on warfarin (OR, 0.867, 95% confidence interval, 0.771–0.975; P = 0.017, I2 = 1.6%). Cumulative meta‐analysis showed that the PPB rate of DOACs has the trend to be lower than that of warfarin with publication year and sample size. For the subgroup of endoscopic submucosal dissection, the PPB of DOACs was significantly lower than that of warfarin (OR, 0.786; 95% confidence interval, 0.633–0.976; P = 0.029, I2 = 0%). No significant difference was observed between DOACs and warfarin for anticoagulant strategies, endoscopic procedures, and lesion location.
Conclusions
Compared with warfarin, DOACs have the possibility to significantly decrease the risk of PPB following endoscopic resection, especially for endoscopic submucosal dissection.