RESEARCH ARTICLE
Assessment of Dosing and Patient Factors on the Efficacy of Warfarin Following Total Joint Replacement
Ryan Murphy 1, Annamarie Stehli 2, Hiep Nguyen 3, Szu-Yun Leu 2, 5, Danh V Nguyen 2, 4, Ran Schwarzkopf *, 1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2015Volume: 9
First Page: 129
Last Page: 138
Publisher ID: TOORTHJ-9-129
DOI: 10.2174/1874325001509010129
Article History:
Received Date: 15/12/2014Revision Received Date: 19/2/2015
Acceptance Date: 28/2/2015
Electronic publication date: 15/5/2015
Collection year: 2015
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine the percentage of patients discharged with a subtherapeutic INR <1.8 using our institutions inpatient warfarin dosing nomogram following total joint arthroplasty (TJA). We examined predisposing risk factors for a subtherapeutic discharge (INR <1.8), including increased body weight, age, gender, end stage renal disease (ESRD), smoking, and peri-operative transfusion.
Chart review identified 249 patients for study inclusion. Logistic regression (LR) was used to identify associated risk factors for a subtherapeutic INR (<1.8) on day of discharge.
The majority of patients (58.6%, 146 of 249) following TJA surgery were found to have a subtherapeutic INR level (INR<1.8) at discharge (mean length of stay 2.6 days). Multivariate LR analysis found that weight greater than 180 lbs. (OR 2.08, CI 1.09, 3.98, P=0.027) was found to increase the odds of a subtherapeutic INR on day of discharge. Our results were not significant for weight 20% beyond ideal body weight, age (>65y), gender, peri-operative transfusion, smoking, ESRD or autoimmune disease.
A patient’s body weight influences response to warfarin following TJA. An inpatient warfarin dosing nomogram that takes into account a patient’s weight should be used to reduce the risk of subtherapeutic INR levels in obese TJA patients.
