Anticoagulants in Congestive Heart Failure

Abstract

The incidence of pulmonary embolism in 76 patients with congestive cardiac failure given prophylactic (oral) anticoagulant therapy was 8%. The incidence in a similar control series of 80 such patients not given anticoagulants was 10%. Anticoagulant prophylaxis with phenindione, instituted at the time of admission, appears to afford protection against venous thromboembolic complications after the first 10 days, but this advantage is counterbalanced by an apparently increased tendency to such episodes during the first week or 10 days of administration of the drug. The risk of thromboembolism in patients with clinically mild degrees of failure is too small to warrant routine anticoagulant drug prophylaxis. © 1966, British Medical Journal Publishing Group. All rights reserved.