A publication by staff at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has been shared as a clinical guideline by a national association.
The paper, written by Professor Suresh Chhetri, Professor Hedley Emsley, and Dr Katherine Dodd has been officially accepted by the Association of British Neurologists (ABN) as a clinical guideline. The paper provides recommendations about undertaking lumbar puncture in patients on anticoagulants and antiplatelets (blood thinning medications).
Lumbar puncture is commonly used in neurology practice and is used to check the fluid that circulates around the brain and the spinal cord in order to diagnose disorders of the central nervous system.
Professor Suresh Chhetri, Clinical Professor and Consultant Neurologist at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals said: “The guideline offers practical recommendations to facilitate management of patients requiring lumbar puncture in the setting of anticoagulant and/or antiplatelet therapy and minimise the risks associated with the procedure. It is great for our neurology team to have this paper adopted as a formal Association of British Neurologists Clinical Guideline.”
“The editors of Practical Neurology believe that this is an important paper, even outside the field of neurology, which will be widely used and quoted around the world. As an ABN clinical guideline, it is free to download globally. This is excellent news for our neurology department as well as Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.”
The paper can be freely accessed at https://pn.bmj.com/content/practneurol/early/2018/08/28/practneurol-2017-001820.full.pdf
