Clotting Pathways

 Question: A 62 year old male with multiple myeloma develops unilateral nasal pain and rhinorrhea.  Suspecting invasive fungal sinusitis, you take him to the operating room for debridement, biopsy, cultures, and attempts at clearing margins around necrotic tissue.  His platelet count is 14 and Hgb is 7.1.  Transfusions of PRBCs and platelets are given intraoperatively, but visualization is challenging due to profuse mucosal bleeding.  The anesthesia team starts tranexamic acid infusion.  What is the mechanism of action of this medication?

[Answer will be posted with next week's new question]

Answer to last week's question, "It’s Complicated" (May 7, 2018)

Bezold’s abscess. Cortical mastoidectomy with removal of mastoid tip and drainage of neck abscess.