An Assessment of Different Filter Systems for Extracorporeal Elimination of Bivalirudin: An In Vitro Study

Abstract

Bivalirudin is a new, direct thrombin inhibitor. We investigated the extracorporeal elimination rate of different hemofilters and one plasmapheresis filter for bivalirudin. Our data show that bivalirudin can be effectively eliminated via hemofiltration and plasmapheresis, although there were significant differences in the elimination rates among the filter systems investigated.