Effective INR Level May Be Delayed in Secondary Prevention of Stroke Due to Atrial Fibrillation with Warfarin in the Patients with Diabetes Mellitus

摘要

Warfarin is a drug used for anticoagulation in diseases, especially atrial fibrillation (AF). The effectiveness of warfarin is monitored by the International Normalized Ratio (INR) and should be kept between 2.0 and 3.0 in the AF clinic. This drug the significant variability in dose response and the narrow therapeutic index among individuals. However, the effective INR level may not be achieved due to some reasons, or the time to achieve the effective INR level may lengthen. Our aim in this study is to investigate whether there is a difference in terms of dose and duration in achieving the effective INR level by the warfarin treatment due to the coexistence of AF and stroke between patients with and without diabetes mellitus (DM).