Clinica chimica acta; international journal of clinical chemistry
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Point-of-care devices for performing a prothrombin time/international normalized ratio (PT/INR) using capillary blood samples are being increasingly used to monitor patients receiving anticoagulation therapy. However, the performance of some devices has been shown to be suboptimal and there are only limited published data comparing specific devices to various central laboratory coagulation analyzers. We report an evaluation of the iSTAT PT/INR with a comparison to the Tcoag MDA II analyzer. ⋯ The iSTAT PT/INR compares well to the MDA II when performed by phlebotomists or nurses.
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Red blood cell distribution width (RDW) has been shown to predict clinical outcomes in cardiovascular diseases. We studied whether RDW is useful to predict early mortality in patients with acute dyspnea at an emergency department (ED). ⋯ Our findings suggest that RDW measured at ED is an independent and additive predictor of early mortality in patients with acute dyspnea.