Nursing Students General Students
Published Jul 24, 2016
wendy2016
15 Posts
I think maybe it's the wording and I'm misreading it or something? Can anyone briefly explain please because Google isn't helping me much either!
For Aminocaproic acid (Amicar) it says
Class: fibrinolysis inhibitor
Action: inhibits activation of plasminogen. Plasminogen is a serum protease that can be activated to form clots.
Antidote for TPA (clot buster)
Where I am getting confused is the action and why it's an antidote for TPA. If Amicar is inhibiting plasminogen then isn't it preventing blood clots? But that's wrong because it's used to treat hemmorhage. How does preventing plasminogen form blood clots? Wait.. I'm confused haha.... please unconfuse my muddled brain! I've been studying cardiac drugs for a while. Thanks!
NICUismylife, ADN, BSN, RN
563 Posts
Excuse typos I'm on my phone. What you should do is instead look at the action of TPA to help you figure it out. In my drug book, the action of TPA is "converts plaminogen to plasmin...." I won't type the whole thing because you can already see the answer. If that's the mechanism of action, then Inhibiting the action of plasminogen means that the TPA cannot carry out it's action.
Lev, MSN, RN, NP
4 Articles; 2,805 Posts
I think you have to look up how Alteplase works in order to figure out how Amicar is the "antidote."