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Falsely prolonged prothrombin time due to an inhibitor to human thromboplastin
Author(s) -
Tinegate H. N.,
McArdle B.,
Qureshi M.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
british journal of haematology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.907
H-Index - 186
eISSN - 1365-2141
pISSN - 0007-1048
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2141.1984.tb06093.x
Subject(s) - thromboplastin , medicine , prothrombin time , partial thromboplastin time , pharmacology , platelet , coagulation
Summary A patient with nephrotic syndrome of unknown aetiology was found to have a grossly prolonged prothrombin time in the absence of any other coagulation abnormality and with no clinical bleeding problem. Subsequent investigations showed his plasma contained an inhibitor‐like substance, directed against human but not animal thromboplastin. Estimation of prothrombin time using either human or rabbit brain thromboplastin is a simple and reproducible test. The standard method which has been in routine use for many years has rarely been reported to give falsely prolonged results in a properly collected blood sample, tested in parallel with a control plasma. A molecular variant of factor VII has been reported to give misleading results with animal thromboplastin (Girolami et al , 1979). We report a patient who had no clinical evidence of a bleeding tendency, and whose plasma gave grossly abnormal and inconsistent prothrombin times due to the presence of a species specific inhibitor of human thromboplastin in the plasma.