Findings from a study published online in The Journal of the American Medical Association suggest that, compared to clinically guided dosing, genotype-guided warfarin dosing may reduce the risk of adverse events for joint arthroplasty patients. 

The authors conducted a multicenter, randomized, clinical trial of 1,597 patients aged 65 years or older who underwent hip or knee arthroplasty, and of whom 808 were assigned to genotype-guided warfarin dosing. They found that adverse events (major bleeding, international normalized ratio of 4 or greater, or venous thromboembolism) occurred in 87 patients (10.8 percent) in the genotype-guided group and 116 patients (14.7 percent) in the clinically guided warfarin dosing group. There were no deaths in either cohort. Learn more...