Safety and efficacy of warfarin in treating patients with atrial fibrillation in Sarawak General Hospital heart center

Atrial fibrillation is a condition where the heart does not beat regularly. This condition is usually treated with warfarin to prevent the risk of blood clotting and bleeding. Warfarin has narrow therapeutic window. Thus, monitoring is needed and international normalised ratio (INR) is used for this purpose. From the INR readings, time in therapeutic range (TTR) is calculated to evaluate the quality of the anticoagulant. 120 patients with atrial fibrillation were randomly selected and their INR readings were recorded. At least four INR readings were inserted into INR template to obtain the TTR. 61 males and 59 females were involved. 25.8% of the patients were 75 years old and above while the remaining 74.1 % were with the age of 74 and below. 73% of the patients have TTR less than 75% while the remaining 27% have TTR 75% and above. Warfarin prescribing should be taken seriously to increase the TTR and minimize risk of developing stroke or bleeding.