title: Anticoagulation with sodium warfarin in children: effect of a loading regimen.
abstract: To assess dose requirements of warfarin in children, we analyzed retrospectively the treatment of 26 patients with the drug. Subsequently we treated 15 children, prospectively, with a regimen derived from our retrospective analysis (0.2 mg/kg/day for 2 days). In the retrospective analysis we found the prothrombin time (PT) at day 2 to correlate significantly with the dose given on day 0 (p less than 0.001) and with the cumulative dose on days 0 and 1 (p less than 0.001), but the standardized loading regimen resulted in a wide range of PTs independent of age, weight, or body surface area. The warfarin dose contributes only 40% of the variability in PT; an individual child's response to warfarin cannot be predicted accurately on the basis of the usual morphometric measurements.
authors.affiliation: Division of Hematology/Oncology, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Doyle
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Koren
authors.forename: M Y
authors.initials: MY
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: V S
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Blanchette
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D006350:Heart Valve Prosthesis; D006801:Humans; D008111:Liver Function Tests; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000517:prevention & control*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011517:Prothrombin Time; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013927:Thrombosis / Q000517:prevention & control*; D014859:Warfarin / Q000008:administration & dosage*
chemical_list: D014859:Warfarin