Paul Tassin  |  February 2, 2016

Category: Legal News

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XareltoAmid hundreds of Xarelto lawsuits alleging the anticoagulant medication caused excessive bleeding, a man from Florida now claims that Xarelto failed to prevent his ischemic stroke.

The plaintiff says he suffered an ischemic stroke after taking Xarelto to prevent stroke related to his atrial fibrillation. He claims that the once-a-day dosing schedule recommended for Xarelto was inadequate to prevent stroke.

Xarelto is drug maker Janssen Pharmaceuticals’ brand name for the drug known generically as rivaroxaban. It’s been on the market since the FDA first approved it for sale in 2011. Xarelto is now approved for use in preventing stroke and systemic embolism in patients with atrial fibrillation. It’s also used to prevent and treat pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis.

Xarelto is one of three new medications that recently challenged warfarin’s decades-long prominence in the market for anticoagulant drugs. Since the 1950s, warfarin (also known by the brand name Coumadin) was the most frequently prescribed anticoagulant medication, and it was the only drug approved to prevent stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation.

However, warfarin has its drawbacks. Treatment with warfarin requires the patient to undergo regular blood testing to ensure that the dosage is correct: too little warfarin will fail to prevent stroke, and too much puts the patient at risk for excessive bleeding.

The new generation of anticoagulants like Xarelto were designed and marketed to be taken without regular blood testing. Xarelto itself was also designed to be taken only once a day, to make treatment simpler and more convenient. However, some Xarelto lawsuit plaintiffs take issue with that once-a-day dosing schedule, alleging that more frequent dosing would be safer.

Xarelto and Ischemic Stroke

The plaintiff from Florida is not the only patient to have suffered an ischemic stroke simultaneous with Xarelto treatment. A case study published in the October 2014 issue of the Austin Journal of Pharmacology and Therapeutics details the story of one 88-year-old woman who suffered an acute ischemic stroke while taking rivaroxaban.

The woman had been hospitalized twelve days for sudden weight loss. During that time she continued to take rivaroxaban, which she had been taking to prevent stroke associated with her atrial fibrillation.

Just before she was discharged, the woman began to have slurred speech and weakness in her left arm and left leg. She was diagnosed with acute ischemic stroke and transferred to a specialized vascular institute.

After four days of treatment for her stroke, she was transferred back to the first facility. But since treatment with rivaroxaban had failed to prevent her stroke, her providers discontinued that medication and started her on a different anticoagulant drug.

The Xarelto MDL

Legal claims over Xarelto side effects have already begun stacking up. About 1,700 Xarelto lawsuits are already pending in a multidistrict litigation in a Louisiana federal court.

Generally, the plaintiffs in this MDL allege that Xarelto caused them cerebral hemorrhage, gastrointestinal bleeding, or other types of excessive bleeding that were in some cases life-threatening or actually fatal. These plaintiffs allege that Janssen Pharmaceuticals and other defendants failed to properly warn physicians and their patients about the risk of Xarelto bleeding.

Do YOU have a legal claim? Fill out the form on this page now for a free, immediate, and confidential case evaluation. The Xarelto attorneys who work with Top Class Actions will contact you if you qualify to let you know if an individual lawsuit or Xarelto class action lawsuit is best for you. [In general, Xarelto lawsuits are filed individually by each plaintiff and are not class actions.] Hurry — statutes of limitations may apply.

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