Plaintiff Lorraine P. has filed a lawsuit against Janssen Research & Development LLC, the manufacturers of the anticoagulant drug Xarelto.

According to the complaint, Lorraine alleges that she, a resident of Fairfax County in the State of Virginia, started taking Xarelto in March 2013 through January 2015. She was allegedly prescribed Xarelto for treatment of pulmonary embolisms, a condition in which one or more arteries in the blood becomes blocked by a blood clot. She took the medication until January 2015, when she suffered an episode of anemia due to Xarelto.

“As a direct and proximate result of Plaintiff’s use of Xarelto, she suffered serious and severe injuries, including gastrointestinal bleeding, iron deficiency anemia due to chronic blood loss, and respiratory failure,” the lawsuit maintains.

According to her Xarelto lawsuit, Lorraine had to undergo several blood transfusions to treat her anemia due to Xarelto, and she became hospitalized due to these serious injuries at Fair Oaks Hospital in Fairfax, Va.

Because of the plaintiff’s anemia due to Xarelto, she was advised by her physician to discontinue her use of the medication.

Anemia Due to Xarelto Among Other Dangerous Side Effects

Several complications may occur when taking Xarelto. These side effects may include uncontrollable internal bleeding, hemorrhaging, deep vein thrombosis, gastrointestinal bleeding, pulmonary embolism, and ischemic stroke.

Xarelto, also known as rivaroxaban, is a more recent anticoagulant medication that helps to prevent blood clots from forming. The drug was approved in 2011 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

It is approved to be prescribed to patients to help decrease their risk for stroke and blood clots in patients with atrial fibrillation, commonly known as an abnormal heart rhythm.

However, Xarelto has also been known to increase the risk of severe blood clots in geriatric patients, or those who are the median age of 66, and have undergone a hip or knee replacement. Moreover, patients have also alleged that ischemic stroke, an obstruction in a blood vessel supplying blood to the brain, has occurred in patients who took Xarelto.

Several adverse event reports have been filed with the FDA concerning the severe adverse effects and complications that have resulted from taking Xarelto.

According to Lorraine’s Xarelto lawsuit, moreover, a study termed the EINSTEIN-PE study concluded that “a Xarelto regimen was non-inferior to the standard therapy for initial and long-term treatment of PE. “However, the studies also demonstrated an increased risk of adverse events with Xarelto, including those that resulted in permanent discontinuation of Xarelto or prolonged hospitalization.”

The lawsuit alleges that the defendants failed to provide adequate warnings of the increased risk of gastrointestinal bleeding from taking Xarelto, among other potentially life-threatening side effects.

The anemia due to Xarelto lawsuit contends that at the end of 2012, 2,081 Xarelto associated Serious Adverse Event reports were filed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It ranked tenth among other medications/pharmaceuticals allegedly reported to the federal agency.

The Anemia Due to Xarelto Lawsuit is Case No. 2:17-cv-09017-EEF-MBN, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.