Matej Samoš, Ján Staško, Ingrid Škorňová, Lucia Stančiaková, Tomáš Bolek, Barbora Korpallová, Lukáš Urban, Marián Mokáň
Direct oral anticoagulants have extended the approaches for pharmacologic prevention of stroke and systemic embolism
in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation. These agents expose several advantages compared to vitamin
K antagonists, such as more predictable pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profile, and a fact, that there is no
need for routine laboratory monitoring of these agents However, there are several reports regarding the benefits of
laboratory assessment of these agents in chosen sub-populations of patients, as on-treatment levels/acidity of these
agents probably correlates with the risk of adverse ischemic and bleeding events on direct oral anticoagulants
therapy. In addition, standard coagulation tests seem not to be sensitive enough for this assessment; thus, more
specific coagulation tests should be probably used to do so. There are several novel tests already established in
clinical practice for the laboratory assessment of direct oral anticoagulants. This article summarizes current approaches
for laboratory monitoring the direct oral anticoagulants.