Portable Monitor Warns of Potential Blood Clots

A portable device measures blood-clotting time, also known as prothrombin time (PT), using one drop of blood from a patient's finger.

The device is called the international normalized (IN) Ratio2 PT/INR monitoring system. The INR is the ratio between the coagulation time of a sample of blood and the normal coagulation time, when coagulation takes place in certain standardized conditions. The INRatio2 is used by healthcare professionals and their patients in the management of warfarin, a blood-thinning drug, to monitor the effectiveness of the drug and warn of potential blood clots and other bleeding risks.
The monitoring system offers many patient-friendly features, including a one-minute test time, easy single button interface, and 200-test battery life. Its simple fingerstick test procedure, lightweight, and individually sealed test strip packaging enable patients to easily test themselves at home or when traveling.

Inverness Medical Physician Diagnostics Group, a division of Inverness Medical Innovations (Waltham, MA, USA), announced the launch of the INRatio2 PT/INR monitoring system, which was cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA; Rockville, MD, USA) for warfarin patients to test themselves at home. The patients now have quick access to their PT/INR results.

The test results can be transmitted to the treating physician by telephone or Internet. The results provide important data that help physicians make informed warfarin-dosing adjustments to ensure that patients stay within their recommended therapeutic range. Warfarin is a difficult drug to manage due to the wide variance in each patient's response to the drug, in addition to factors such as diet, age, illness, and interaction with other drugs. Research has demonstrated that more frequent PT/INR testing can help improve a patient's time in therapeutic range.

Warfarin drugs are prescribed to patients to prevent blood clots, heart attacks, deep vein thrombosis, and stroke. Warfarin is the second most common cause of emergency room visits related to adverse drug events, trailing only insulin. The FDA estimates that two million Americans start taking warfarin every year, and many will take the drug for the rest of their lives. Due to the serious bleeding risks associated with warfarin, the FDA has labeled it with a "black box” warning, informing consumers of the major and potentially fatal risks, and indicating that patients should have their PT/INR monitored regularly.

Available to patients by prescription, and to healthcare professionals for in-office or laboratory testing, the INRatio2 was developed by HemoSense (San Jose, CA, USA) a point-of-care diagnostics manufacturer acquired by Inverness Medical in November 2007.


Inverness Medical Innovations is a global leader in rapid point-of-care diagnostics, Inverness' products, as well as its new product development efforts focus on infectious disease, cardiology, oncology, drugs of abuse, and women's health.

Related Links:
Inverness Medical Physician Diagnostics Group
FDA
HemoSense