While these agents may be suitable in some patients, they are highly expensive and their real-world safety is uncertain, particularly in older people.[3, 4] Weekly POC INR monitoring conducted in ACFs and electronic communication of results and warfarin doses resulted in non-significant improvements in INR control in a small

cohort of older residents. An improvement in warfarin control was shown for the majority of patients, but the results also demonstrated the variability and difficulties faced by GPs in maintaining tight control of the INR. Further research involving modification to the communication strategy and a longer follow-up period is warranted to investigate whether this strategy can improve INR control in this population. The approach was accepted by patients, Everolimus solubility dmso GPs and nurses alike, and with further improvements and stakeholder consultation could be adopted more widely. LB, SJ and GP have received research funding from Roche

Diagnostics Australia. LB has received speaker honorarium payments from Roche Diagnostics Australia. This project was funded by Healthconnect via the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. The authors would like click here to acknowledge the contribution of the members of the Project Working Group to the successful completion of the project. We would also like to acknowledge the support of Roche Diagnostics Australia for the provision of the INR testing devices used in the project and Jess Frost for her assistance in the preparation buy 5-Fluoracil of the manuscript. GP, SJ and LB contributed to the design and conduct of the study. WK, BB and KF contributed to the conduct of the study. PG contributed to the conduct of the study and developed

the information technology applications used in the project. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. “
“To describe utilization patterns of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) among adult epileptic patients at a tertiary hospital in Oman. Data were collected retrospectively from January 2006 to December 2009. The study included all adult (>18 years) epileptic patients on AEDs and followed up at a neurology clinic at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital in Oman. All reported therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) requests for serum AED concentrations were also collected. Institutional ethical approval was sought and obtained. The study included a total of 372 patients with a mean age of 34 ± 15 years. Monotherapy AEDs accounted for 53% of the prescriptions, whereas polytherapy with two or three AED combinations accounted for 27% and 20% respectively. The most frequently prescribed AED was sodium valproate (27%) followed by carbamazepine (23%). The commonly prescribed AED combinations were sodium valproate with clonazepam (12%) followed by sodium valproate with lamotrigine (12%).