In the 8th episode of the podcast, my guest is again Dr Athanas Banchev who is a medical doctor specialized in pediatric haematology that is really passionate about bleeding disorders.

This time we dived deep into the fundamentals of bleeding disorders and we tried to answer most of the question that a patient with a bleeding disorder or his/her family could have about the factors and coagulation process. We covered Haemophilia A, B and von Willebrand disease. Dr Banchev described what are factors, how the body produces them, what is the difference between them and how they play a crucial role in the clotting cascade. He in details described the primary and secondary haemostasis and what is the reason that prevents the body of a patient with a bleeding disorder to stop the bleeding. We talked also about ice and why it is good to apply when you have a bleed and for how long you should have it. Then the conversation steered towards the life-cycle of factors, what is the half-life of factors and why they get removed from the bloodstream after certain time. We also briefly covered the evolution of the treatment. Dr. Athanas also described how modern recombinant factor concentrates with extended half-life work, and why he doesn’t believe we are going to see treatment in the form of a pill. We concluded this conversation talking about the woman with Haemophilia A and Haemophilia B.