Systems and Microcomputer Approach to Anticoagulant Therapy

A modem systems approach to the warfarin (an oral anticoagulant drug) dosage control problem is developed and analyzed on numerous patient data sets. Except for the initial statistics generation, all of the computer programs are developed for the relatively inexpensive Commodore PET 2001 microcomputer. A stabilized extended Kalman filter is employed to determine two patient dependent parameters from a series of Quick prothrombin time measurements in addition to estimating the prothrombin complex activity. The resultant parameters are then employed in an interactive graphics simulation program to determine a near-optimal dosage strategy.