Direct Oral Anti-Coagulants, Clinical and Laboratory Aspects
The field of Direct Oral Anti-Coagulants (DOACs) is still in a state of constant development. In this special issue several authors give their opinion on DOACs with respect to clinical use, laboratory testing and quality control related matters.
The Clinical part reports on how thrombosis care is organized, gives considerations about the ideal anti-coagulant drug, describes Atrial Fibrillation and Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) in combination with DOACs. In addition the management of bleeding complications in patients treated with DOACs are discussed and the role of the clinical laboratory in the management of patients treated with DOACs is described. The laboratory part starts with a contribution about the laboratory measurement of DOACs, followed by an article about the interference of DOACs with laboratory testing and a contribution about the measurement of DOACs in urine. In the last item an overview of external quality assessment results for Rivaroxaban and Dabigatran is given.