Influence of age, sex and vitamin status on fasting and post-methionine load plasma homocysteine levels.

Background And Objectives: To investigate the effects of age, sex and vitamin status on total plasma homocysteine (tHCy), both after fasting (FtHCy) and two hours post-methionine load (PML-tHCy). The secondary aim was to determine the reference values for FtHCy and PML-tHCy.

Design And Methods: A cohort of apparently healthy volunteers underwent blood sampling for FtHCy, PML-tHCy, creatinine, serum folate, vitamin B12 and vitamin B6 (pyridoxal-5-phosphate, PLP).

Oral anticoagulation treatment in the elderly: a nested, prospective, case-control study.

Background: Whether elderly patients are at increased risk of complications during oral anticoagulant treatment (OAT) is still a matter of debate.

Method: Bleeding and thrombotic events occurring during OAT in 461 patients, aged 75 years or older when they started OAT, and in 461 patients younger than 70 years, matched for sex, OAT indication, and treating center, were examined in a prospective, multicenter, inception-cohort study.

Results: Bleeding rate was 9.

Thrombotic events during oral anticoagulant treatment: results of the inception-cohort, prospective, collaborative ISCOAT study: ISCOAT study group (Italian Study on Complications of Oral Anticoagulant Therapy).

The paper reports on rate and type of thrombotic events occurring during the observational, prospective, inception-cohort, multicenter ISCOAT study. 2,745 unselected, daily practice patients, consecutively referring to 34 Italian anticoagulation clinics to monitor the oral anticoagulant treatment, were included in the study from beginning of their first anticoagulant course. During a total follow-up of 2,011 patient-years of treatment 70 thrombotic events (3.

[Hemorrhagic complications of oral anticoagulant therapy: results of a prospective multicenter study ISCOAT (Italian Study on Complications of Oral Anticoagulant Therapy)].

Background: To assess the incidence of bleeding complications during oral anticoagulant therapy (OAT) in a population of patients representative of daily practice in Italian anticoagulation clinics.

Design: prospective, inception-cohort, multicentre.

Setting: Thirty-four anticoagulation clinics federated in the Italian Federation of Anticoagulation Clinics.

Bleeding complications of oral anticoagulant treatment: an inception-cohort, prospective collaborative study (ISCOAT). Italian Study on Complications of Oral Anticoagulant Therapy.

Background: Bleeding is the most serious complication of the use of oral anticoagulation in the prevention and treatment of thromoboembolic complications. We studied the frequency of bleeding complications in outpatients treated routinely in anticoagulation clinics.

Methods: In a prospective cohort from thirty-four Italian anticoagulation clinics, 2745 consecutive patients were studied from the start of their oral anticoagulation (warfarin in 64%, acenocourmarol in the rest).