Comparative Study of the Results of Capillary Blood International Normalized Ratio on Coagucheck XS POC and Conventional Coagulation Blood Test

Abstract

Millions of patients worldwide are taking anticoagulants like acenocumarol and warfarin for prevention of serious thrombotic complications as stroke or heart attack. The coumarins or vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) have been the mainstay of oral anticoagulant therapy for more than 50 years. In clinical practice VKAs are challenging to use, because they reveal considerable variability in dose response among different patients, resulting from genetic mutation and drug and diet interactions. Because of this they require frequent laboratory monitoring which is time consuming and discomfort for the patients. The development of point-of-care (POC) devices enables International normalized ratio (INR) to be obtained in outpatient as well as at home setting at the moment. Some earlier studies have shown statistically significant differences between values from clinical laboratory and POC meters, because of which the accuracy of these meters remain still controversial. The aim of this study was to evaluate the results of INR on the CoaguChek XS meter relative to chronometric assay on laboratory coagulometer Sysmex S 2000i.