Comparative study of a portable prothrombin time monitor employing three different systems in oral anticoagulant units

The aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of the portable coagulom eter CoaguChek(R) (Roche Diagnostics) as a prothrombin time (PT) monitor, a nd to correlate capillary blood results with those of three different routi ne methods used for monitoring oral anticoagulant therapy (OAT): capillary, plasma and whole blood samples. Three hospitals participated in the study with a total of 235 patients on OAT. The international normalized ratio (IN R) results obtained with CoaguChek were compared with those obtained using each of the routine methods. The study presents a good correlation between the PT monitor and the three methods studied: r = 0.9745 (hospital A), r = 0.9283 (hospital B), r = 0.9136 (hospital C). A simplified concordance test of the methods results in a nine-field comparison table showing concordanc es of 87.2, 85.7 and 68.4%, respectively. The absolute difference (mean it SD) between laboratory A and CoaguChek INRs was 0.0571 +/- 0.2042, with val ues of 0.04286 +/- 0.3906 for laboratory B and 0.6986 +/- 0.6170 for labora tory C. These results confirm that CoaguChek could be used as a new method for oral anticoagulant monitoring, and is in best agreement with the capill ary blood PT system. Copyright (C) 2001 S. Karger AG, Basel.