Cost-effectiveness analysis of dabigatran and anticoagulation monitoring strategies of vitamin K antagonist

BackgroundVitamin K antagonists are commonly used for the prevention of thromboembolic events. Patient self-monitoring of vitamin K antagonists has proved superior to usual care. Dabigatran has been shown, relative to warfarin, to reduce thromboembolic events without increasing bleeding.MethodsWe constructed a Markov model to compare vitamin K self-monitoring strategies to dabigatran including effectiveness and costs of monitoring and …