Screening tests of disseminated intravascular coagulation: Guidelines for rapid and specific laboratory diagnosis

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Abstract
To study the clinician’s ordering pattern in the diagnosis of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) and to analyze the utility of selected tests by assessing their sensitivity, specificity, and overall efficiency. Retrospective, nonrandomized, clinical study. University hospital intensive care units. A total of 82 inpatients treated in our intensive care units were identified from the hospital computer system as having been tested for DIC in a 3-month period. Screening tests for DIC were ordered for the suspected patients. Prothrombin time (PT), partial thromboplastin time (PTT), fibrinogen/fibrin degradation products (FDP), and fibrinogen were used most frequently as DIC diagnostic tests. The FDP and D-dimer combination (n = 39) had the highest diagnostic efficiency of 95%, with sensitivity being 91% and specificity 94%. This is followed by FDP (n = 71), efficiency 87%, sensitivity 100%, and specificity 67%; PT/PTT and FDP combination (n = 71), efficiency 86%, sensitivity 91%, and specificity 71%; and D-dimer (n = 44), efficiency 80%, sensitivity 91%, and specificity 68%. The rest of the commonly used tests, such as PT, PTT, thrombin time, platelet count, fibrinogen, and the presence of schistocytes (n = 80), had individually either low specificity or low sensitivity and, therefore, low efficiency scores (57%, 57%, 70%, 67%, 65%, and 51%, respectively). The D-dimer and FDP tests offered the best test panel in the diagnosis of DIC. We propose the use of D-dimer, FDP, and antithrombin as the DIC diagnostic test panel, with D-dimer and FDP providing a rapid and specific diagnosis, antithrombin providing insight to the severity and prognosis, and FDP (rapid and less expensive than D-dimer) to follow-up the progress of the condition once the diagnosis is established.