Antithrombotic Therapy in Patients With Mechanical and Biological Prosthetic Heart Valves

Abstract

In 1992, based on extensive review of the literature, we concluded that in patients with mechanical prosthetic heart valves, 1 Stein PD Alpert JS Copeland J et al. Antithrombotic therapy in patients with mechanical and biological prosthetic heart valves. Chest. 1992; 102: 445S-455S Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (96) Google Scholar (1) long-term (permanent) therapy with oral anticoagulants offers the most consistent protection, and (2) levels of oral anticoagulants that prolong the prothrombin time (PT) ratio to an international normalized ratio (INR) of 2.5 to 3.5 are satisfactory for tilting disk valves and bileaflet valves and are probably adequate for caged ball valves, although data for caged ball valves are sparse. ErrataCHESTVol. 109Issue 2PreviewIn the article “Antithrombotic Therapy in Patients With Mechanical and Biological Prosthetic Heart Valves” by Stein et al in the October supplement (CHEST 1995; 108[suppl]:371-79), a sentence was partially omitted from the bottom left and top right columns of page 371 . The sentence should have read as follows: “The analysis showed, therefore, that an INR in the range of 2.5 to 3.6 was effective in reducing the risk of thromboembolic events and in minimizing the risk of bleeding in patients, the majority of whom had tilting disk or bileaflet mechanical heart valves.” Full-Text PDF