Management of oral anticoagulant in clinical practice: a retrospective study of 187 patients

Abstract

Oral anticoagulant (OA) therapy is widely used in elderly patients because of the increase of indications with age (venous thromboembolism and atrial fibrillation). A particularity of France is to administer three different OAs (warfarin and more often fluindione or acenocoumarol). In an attempt to assess the particularities of managing all three OAs in elderly patients in clinical practice, we studied the modalities of anticoagulation of 187 consecutive OA therapy patients (mean age = 74.4 years) hospitalized in an Internal Medicine department (95 patients on OA at admission and 92 patients initiated on OA during hospitalization). Patients aged 75 years or older more often required a low dosage of OA than those aged younger than 75, irrespective of the OA (warfarin and more often fluindione or acenocoumarol). Ambulatory patients aged 75 years or older were more susceptible to receive acenocoumarol than were ambulatory patients younger than 75 years (respectively 30/67 vs 8/28, respectively), whereas fluindione was prescribed at the same frequency in ambulatory patients and hospitalized patients, regardless of age group (> or =75: 32/67; <75: 19/28). In hospitalized patients with OA induction, fluindione was prescribed as often in patients younger than 75 than in patients aged 75 years or older (40/47 vs 35/45, respectively). On admission, international normalized ratio was in the target range in 26 of the 95 patients (27.4%) and was >3 in 51 of the 95 patients (51.6%). OA therapy was stopped during hospitalization in 35 patients (36.8%). In conclusion, we have a picture of the practice of anticoagulation with three different OA therapies. Although it is usually recommended to prescribe long half-time OA therapy (2), it appears that short half-time therapy such as acenocoumarol still represents an important number of OA prescriptions in France, especially in ambulatory and elderly patients. International normalized ratio is not in the target range as often as expected in clinical practice, and elderly patients require specific modalities of OA therapy management, such as half dose initiation, use of long-half-life OA, and close monitoring.