Quality of oral anticoagulant therapy.

Three hundred and eighty-four patients were studied for up to 1 year while on continuous oral anticoagulant therapy and the quality of control of therapy was assessed. Two hundred and thirty-five patients were on continuous therapy throughout the year (long-term group), 73 were treated for a period between 3 and 12 months (intermediate group) and 76 were treated for less than 3 months (short-term group). The therapeutic objective was to achieve and maintain British Ratio (BR) between 2.0 and 4.0. Nineteen percent of the results in the long-term group, 26.6% in the intermediate group and 41.1% in the short-term group fell outside this range. Among the long-term group only 25.1% and in the intermediate group 12.3% had all their results within the control range. It is concluded that the quality of therapeutic control of oral anticoagulant therapy needs to be improved.