Design:A prospective multicentre randomized double-blind controlled trial. Patients: Consecutive eligible and consenting patients from 11 teaching hospitals in Canada. A total of 1773 patients with prosthetic heart valves receiving long-term oral anticoagulation with warfarin or patients with atrial fibrillation/flutter and a major risk factor who require elective non-cardiac surgery or invasive procedure necessitating reversal of their oral anticoagulant therapy.