Laboratory Diagnosisof Heparin-induced Thrombocytopenia

Overview

Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia is one of the major complications of heparin therapy,which occursapproximately in 3%of patients receiving unfractionated heparin.It is manifested by a combination ofthrombocytopenia with thrombotic events.Heparinnduced thrombocytopenia is caused by specificantibodies that recognise complexes of heparin and platelet factor 4,leading to platelet activation.Twotypes of diagnostic assays are available:1.Antigen assays are based on detection of the specificantibody.2.Functional assays rely upon platelet aggregation or activation.Among tests in this group,the serotonin release assay has been reported to be the best,but it is time consuming and the onlymethod where serotonin labelled by radioactive 14C is used.The authors developed a method tomeasure serotonin release by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)–fluorimetric detection.The test results were compared with other methods.

Key words:
heparin-induced thrombocytopenia,platelet factor 4,HPLC,serotonin,diagnosis