This commentary was written because of a publication in Research and Practice in Thrombosis and Haemostasis (1) which reported an important study for clinicians and laboratories managing patients with anti-Xa direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) and requiring urgent procedures or surgery. In our comkmentary we emphasize the relevance of measurement uncertainty. All laboratory measurements are accompanied by variability, including preanalytical variability, analytical variability (bias and imprecision), and intraindividual biological variation. Measurement uncertainty corresponds to the numerical range around the value returned by the test in which the true biological value lies. Measurement uncertainty is inherent to laboratory medicine and must be considered when interpreting results form individual patiuent samples as well as method comparison studies. This requires laboratories to provide an estimate of the measurement uncertainty along with the result.
- Baker RM, Selby R, Moffat KA, St John M, Spyropoulos AC, Schulman S, et al. Investigating interassay variability between direct oral anticoagulant calibrated anti-factor Xa assays: a substudy of the perioperative anticoagulation use for surgery evaluation (PAUSE) trial. Res Pract Thromb Haemost. 2025;9:102899. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.rpth.2025.102899
This is publication can be approached via the following link: