A retrospective review of clinical international normalized ratio results and their implications.

Background: Warfarin is a key element in therapy for atrial fibrillation, deep venous thrombosis (DVT), stroke (cerebrovascular accident) and cardiac valve replacement. Often, patients' warfarin blood levels are not tightly controlled with regard to accepted therapeutic ranges, by virtue of the drug's unpredictable nature.

Methods: The authors searched 16,017 active clinical charts for active patients of record from the three campuses of the School of Dentistry, Marquette University (MU), Milwaukee, for the years 2009 and 2010.