Acute kidney injury interacts with VKORC1 genotype on initiative warfarin dose among heart surgery recipients: a real-world research

Abstract Patients who receive heart valve surgery need anticoagulation prophylaxis to reduce the risk of thrombosis. Warfarin often is a choice but its dosage varies due to gene and clinical factors. We aim to study, among them, if there is an interaction between acute kidney injury and two gene polymorphisms from this study. We extracted data of heart valve surgery recipients from the electronic health record (EHR) system of a medical center. The primary outcome is about the average daily dose of warfarin, measured as an additive interaction effect (INTadd) between acute kidney injury (AKI) and warfarin-related gene polymorphisms. The confounders, including age, sex, body surface area (BSA), comorbidities (i.e., atrial fibrillation [AF], hypertension [HTN], congestive heart failure [CHF]), serum albumin level, warfarin-relevant gene polymorphism (i.e., CYP2C9, VKORC1), prosthetic valve type (i.e., metal, bio), and warfarin history were controlled via a multivariate-linear regression model. The study included 200 patients, among whom 108 (54.00%) are female. Further, the mean age is 54.45 years, 31 (15.50%) have CHF, and 40 (20.00%) patients were prescribed concomitant amiodarone, which potentially overlays with the warfarin prophylaxis period. During the follow-up, AKI occurred in 30 (15.00%) patients. VKORC1 mutation (1639G>A) occurred in 25 (12.50%) patients and CYPC29 *2 or *3 mutations presented in 20 patients (10.00%). We found a significant additive interaction effect between AKI and VKORC1 (− 1.17, 95% CI − 1.82 to − 0.53, p = 0.0004). This result suggests it is probable that there is an interaction between acute kidney injury and the VKORC1 polymorphism for the warfarin dose during the initial period of anticoagulation prophylaxis.