Point-of-care monitoring of oral anticoagulation therapy in children: Comparison of the CoaguChek XS® system with venous INR and venous INR using an International Reference Thromboplastin preparation (rTF/95)

Abstract

Point-of-care (POC) monitoring of oral anticoagulation has been widely adopted in both paediatric and adult patients. A new POC system, the CoaguChek XS® has recently been developed to measure the international normalised ratio (INR) and may offer significant advantages. The CoaguChek XS® utilises a new method of electrochemical clot detection based on thrombin generation. This system has not been previously evaluated in children with reference to the laboratory gold standard, the prothrombin time using reference thromboplastin. It was the objective to compare values obtained by the CoaguChek XS® system with both the venous INR and the gold standard for anticoagulant monitoring, prothrombin ..