Limitations
There are a number of limitations to this study. First,we cannot guarantee the completeness and accuracy of
the medical claims data used in this analysis. Claimsbased analyses rely on data that are used primarily for
administrative (ie, billing, payment, and operations) purposes. The data do not, therefore, necessarily reflect
all of the clinical variables taken into account by physicians when making treatment decisions;therefore,some
clinical characteristics (eg, INR, contraindications to anticoagulant therapy) will not have been captured, and
there is the potential for some patients to have beenmisclassified in claims data that are included in the
PharMetrics Integrated Database.