Adherence to and persistence with non-vitamin K-antagonist oral anticoagulants: does the number of pills per day matter?

Once daily dosing schedule is associated with increased adherence to and persistence with cardiovascular therapies. Such feature has been claimed responsible for the significantly lower (both temporary and permanent) discontinuation of oral anticoagulation with rivaroxaban (which is given once daily) compared to dabigatran (which is given twice daily) in a large, real-world dataset of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) in the United States. While a cause-effect relationship between dosing schedule and adherence and persistence could not be established, the above finding supports nonetheless the preferential selection of the non vitamin-K-antagonists oral anticoagulant (NOAC) with the easiest and most convenient regimen. Given however, the differences in efficacy and safety observed with the various NOACs compared to warfarin in the phase III clinical trials in non-valvular AF, careful individualization of treatment should be pursued, being dosing schedule only one of the variables to be taken into account. Maximal effort instead, should be put in implementing measures to enhance patient's adherence to and persistence with treatment.