Bleeding & Pro-haemostatics

Drugs That Stop Bleeding: Tranexamic Acid and Desmopressin

In the Cardiovascular section you met the clot-busters — alteplase and its cousins that dissolve a thrombus to reopen a blocked artery. Here we meet their mirror image: the clot-savers. When a patient is bleeding to death, we do the exact opposite — we protect the clot and rebuild the missing clotting proteins. Two cheap, elegant drugs — tranexamic acid and desmopressin — carry most of this work, and knowing them well can save a life in a trauma bay or a dental chair.

Haemophilia and Bleeding Disorders: Replacing the Missing Factor

One missing protein in a chain of a dozen, and a child's blood forgets how to seal a wound. For a century that meant a life measured in hospital infusions and ruined joints. Now a once-weekly injection under the skin stands in for the missing factor entirely — and a single gene infusion may end the deficiency for good. This is the story of what breaks in haemophilia, and how we are learning to fix it.