In nine patients, the synthesis rate Rsyn of the vitamin K-dependent clotting factors was calculated from changes in prothrombin-complex activity after intravenous administration of a synthesis-blocking dose of phenprocoumon (PPC). The biological half-life of PPC was between 2.70 and 7.01 days. No correlation was found between the level of the free fraction of this strongly protein-bound drug and its biological half-life. There was a positive correlation (p<0.01) between the size of the free fraction of PPC and the apparent volume of distribution of the drug. Four of the patients had had an acute myocardial infarction and they showed increased sensitivity to PPC. In them the plasma level of PPC sufficient to reduce Rsyn to 50% of R°syn was significantly lower, and the depression of individual vitamin K-dependent coagulation factors was more pronounced and prolonged, than in five other patients with chronic disease. The degradation rate of coagulation factors was also found to be higher in the patients with acute myocardial infarction. In four patients with chronic disease, anticoagulant therapy with PPC was continued in the out-patient clinic. The calculated oral maintenance dose of PPC, assuming complete absorption, first-order elimination kinetics and a linear relationship between the pharmacological effect and the logarithm of the PPC-plasma concentration, showed good agreement with the dose actually found to produce the desired PP% level.