A descriptive evaluation of routine complete blood count monitoring in patients receiving anticoagulation therapy.
BACKGROUND
The most prevalent side effect associated with warfarin therapy is bleeding. Routine monitoring of laboratory tests, such as complete blood counts (CBC), may provide theoretical benefit in this patient population as a means of detecting occult bleeding through hemoglobin values that decrease compared to baseline.


OBJECTIVE
To describe the clinical outcomes associated with routine CBC monitoring in a large, diverse sample of anticoagulated patients.


METHODS
Forty-seven month retrospective, observational study.


METHODS
Large non-profit, group-model health maintenance organization with a centralized clinical pharmacy anticoagulation service that routinely orders baseline CBCs on all patients enrolled in the service with follow up CBCs repeated at 3 months and yearly thereafter.


METHODS
Patients continuously enrolled in the anticoagulation service for warfarin therapy monitoring for at least one year between January 1, 2000 and December 5, 2003.


METHODS
Medical records were reviewed to determine clinical outcomes associated with hemoglobin decreases of > or =2.0 gm/dL. Clinical outcomes included both overt and occult bleeding events and a determination of major or minor bleeding in these events.


RESULTS
Of the 4033 patients included in the analysis, 578 (14.3%) experienced at least one decrease in hemoglobin > or =2.0 gm/dL. Occult bleeding was confirmed in 121 patients (3.0% of all patients monitored) with a decrease of hemoglobin > or =2.0 gm/dL but only 13 of these patients (0.3% of all patients monitored) experienced major bleeding. The annual detection rate of occult bleeding through routine CBC monitoring was 0.8%.


CONCLUSIONS
Although routine CBC monitoring provides some utility in detecting occult bleeding, the yield of clinically important decreases in hemoglobin detected was low. For most anticoagulated patients, routine CBC monitoring appears to be clinically unnecessary.
Anich
Kandace V
KV
Primary Care Clinical Pharmacy Services, Kaiser Permanente of Colorado, Westminster, CO, USA.
Witt
Daniel M
DM
Delate
Thomas
T
Shanahan
Roberta L
RL
Patel
Rachana J
RJ
D000368:Aged; D000925:Anticoagulants / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D001772:Blood Cell Count; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006454:Hemoglobins / Q000032:analysis; D006470:Hemorrhage / Q000097:blood / Q000139:chemically induced / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000379:methods; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014859:Warfarin / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000627:therapeutic use
D000925:Anticoagulants; D006454:Hemoglobins; D014859:Warfarin