Thromboelastometry analysis of thrombocytopenic dengue patients: a cross-sectional study

Dengue is by far the most incident human arbovirus disease [1], with over 2.5 billion people living in high-risk transmission areas [2]. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates 50–100 million of dengue virus infections (DVI) per year, resulting in 500,000 hospitalizations and 20,000 deaths worldwide [1, 2].

Dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) represents a severe clinical presentation of DVI and is characterized by the presence of varying degrees of hemostatic disorders [3, 4]. Intense and amplified cytokine release, along with the complement activation, result in endothelial dysfunction, platelet destruction and consumption of coagulation factors, which may lead to a life threatening disseminate intravascular coagulation (DIC) [5, 6]. Indeed, blood coagulation disorders are commonly observed in patients with DHF and dengue shock syndrome [6, 7].

Many studies have assessed the coagulation system in DVI through conventional coagulation tests such as the prothrombin time (PT), international normalized ratio (INR), thrombin time (TT), and activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) [3, 6, 8, 9]. Nevertheless, conventional coagulation tests were validated to monitor vitamin K antagonists and heparin therapy [10, 11]. Although conventional coagulation tests have not been validated to predict and/or to guide therapy in acute (acquired) hemorrhage, they have been widely used for this purpose [10]. Conventional coagulation tests results may take a few hours to be completed and reported, they track the complexity of hemostatic impairment poorly, and most frequently, they reflect late coagulopathy disorders [10‐13].

Rotational thromboelastometry (ROTEM®) is a point of care test that promptly provides (5–30 min) information about the dynamics of clot formation, stabilization and dissolution, reflecting the in vivo hemostasis at the bedside [12]. ROTEM provides more clinically useful and reliable information than the conventional coagulation tests in critically ill patients [13, 14], yielding a graphical presentation of fibrin polymerization process, involving fibrinogen and platelet function, and fibrinolysis [13].

To our knowledge, no study has evaluated the coagulation profile of patients with DVI with rotational thromboelastometry. Therefore, we aimed at describing the prevalence of coagulation abnormalities addressed by both thromboelastometry and conventional coagulation tests in cases of dengue fever outpatients with thrombocytopenia. Additionally, we evaluated the correlation between conventional coagulation tests and thromboelastometry in this population of patients.

From April 6^th to May 5^th 2015, 4641 medical appointments were scheduled at the outpatient clinic. From those, 3003 were first consultations (Fig. 1). Dengue virus infections were confirmed in 68.9% (2069/3003) of patients while 10.8% (224/2069) of patients had DVI and thrombocytopenia. Out of those, fifty-three patients [53/224 (23.6%)] were consecutively enrolled in this study (Fig. 1).

The main characteristics of DVI patients included in this study are shown in Table 1. The median age of DVI patients was 32 (IQR, 21–43) years and approximately 60% were male. The majority of DVI patients [31/42 (73.8%)] had no significant previous medical history. Most DVI patients presented with fever and headache and were hemodynamically stable (Table 1). Onset of symptoms was acute (median, 4 days; IQR, 2–5), which is consistent with predominance of NS1 positive results [51/53 (96.2%)]. Bleeding manifestations such as epistaxis, gingivorrhagia, hematemesis, hematuria and melena were reported in only 14.3% (7/49) of patients (Table 1). A total of 5.8% (3/52) of patients required hospitalization.

This study demonstrated that DVI patients with thrombocytopenia frequently exhibited hypocoagulability assessed by thromboelastometry while conventional coagulation tests (PT, TT, INR and aPTT) and plasma fibrinogen levels remained within reference range.

Our findings contrasted previous retrospective studies, which demonstrated that prolonged coagulation times are frequent and strongly associated with bleeding manifestations in DVI thrombocytopenic patients [8, 9, 17, 18]. For instance, Wills and colleagues demonstrated in DHF Vietnamese children that a prolonged aPTT >30 s and platelet count <50 x 10⁹/L had an increased risk of bleeding [9]. They also suggested that thrombocytopenia is a mortality predictor in this population of patients [9]. The discrepancy between our findings and those reported by others could be explained, at least in part, by the differences in severity among DVI studied patients [2, 4].

Bleeding complications in DVI patients have been associated with a combination of thrombocytopenia, reduced thrombin formation and increased fibrinolysis [19, 20]. According to Nimmannitya, even extremely low platelet count, such as <20 x 10⁹/L, does not increase bleeding risk except in prolonged shock states [21]. This is a very interesting observation since DVI patients frequently exhibited low platelets in association with impaired platelets function [4, 7, 19]. Platelets are crucial for primary hemostasis as they contribute to thrombus formation [10, 22]. Fibrinogen, the final substrate of coagulation and the ligand of platelet glycoprotein IIb-IIIa complex receptors, enhance platelets function [10, 16]. Therefore, we can assume that the low frequency of bleeding manifestations in thrombocytopenic DVI patients in our study can be explained, at least in part, by maintained plasma fibrinogen levels, as shown in FIBTEM analysis [13, 15].

It is likely that fibrinogen plays a key role in keeping clot strength in DVI patients during the first days of disease [10, 20, 22]. Fibrinogen, the factor I of coagulation system, is the most important numerically and functionally coagulation factor [12, 22]. Fibrinogen represents approximately ninety percent of the total amount of plasmatic coagulation factors and it is the first coagulation factor to fall below a critical value during bleeding and hemodilution [10, 20, 22, 23]. Nevertheless, the critical plasma fibrinogen level associated to increased severity of DVI patients due to major bleeding events, hospitalization and death, needs to be determined [3, 4, 9, 20].

Disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) is defined by the presence of four criteria: thrombocytopenia (platelets below 100 x10⁹/L), high level of products of fibrin degradation (PDF), such as d-dimer, PT prolongation and low plasma fibrinogen level [24]. Our study demonstrated that patients in the first days of DVI already met at least two out of four criteria for DIC (low platelets and high PDF). Studies addressing hemostasis in DHF patients showed that all DHF patients manifested acute type of DIC [19, 20, 25]. Prolongation of aPTT and PT, decreased platelets count, plasma fibrinogen level, prothrombin, factor VIII, plasminogen and antithrombin III activities were observed transiently during acute phase of DHF [9, 20, 25] and they characterize hemorrhagic diathesis of DVI severe patients [3, 4, 20, 21, 25].

Viscoelastic tests allow early and individualized coagulation management in different scenarios, such as in trauma [26, 27], liver transplantation [13, 28], cardiac [15, 28] and neurologic surgeries [16, 29], post-partum hemorrhage [12, 27] and in critically ill patients [22, 26, 28]. Nevertheless, dengue treatment is based mainly on supportive care with fluids and electrolytes [2, 4, 30, 31]. Transfusion triggers and therapeutic goals are not consensus in DVI patients [2, 5, 30, 31]. A report of four DVI bleeding patients with severe DVI and thrombocytopenia in which desmopressin were administrated, showed clinical improvement and hemorrhage control [32]. Desmopressin is a hormone that stimulates release of Von Willebrand factor (vWF) by endothelial cells [10, 22]. The complex factor VIII (FVIII) and vWF improve platelets aggregation and clot stability [33]. Increased levels of vWF were demonstrated in DVI patients during the first days of disease [19, 33]. FVIII/vWF complex is likely to play a key hemostatic role during the early course of DVI [10, 22]. Endothelial activation may be responsible for extravascular plasma leakage and shock in severe DVI patients [2‐5]. However, in the majority of DVI patients, inflammation and endothelial cell activation may represent a compensatory mechanism for thrombocytopenia, clot impairment and hypocoagulability during the early course of disease due to fibrinogen activation and increased vWF levels, which improve platelet aggregation [33‐35].

Another key point in the treatment of DVI patients is the need of high I.V. volume expansion due to intense plasma leakage [2, 30, 31]. Thus, dilution coagulopathy may be present in DVI patients and further aggravate coagulation [2, 22, 34]. A thromboelastometry study showed clot impairment after fluid challenge infusions [36]. A fibrin polymerization deficit is assumed to be one of the major side effects of colloids and crystalloids on coagulation. However, impaired coagulation due to dilution coagulopathy is usually transient and can be partially reversed by fibrinogen concentrate transfusion [10, 36]. Moreover, colloids can also impair thrombus generation [22], decrease factor XIII-fibrin polymer interaction [36] and decrease platelet aggregability and adhesion [10, 11]. This could perpetuate a vicious circle of clot impairment in DVI patients with hypocoagulability secondary to a viral infection [37]. Therefore, we need to keep in mind the importance of individualizing volume expansion in DVI patients presenting with coagulopathy [31‐34]. Therefore, a thromboelastometry-driven approach could represent an alternative strategy to manage complex cases of DVI associated with coagulopathy [37‐39].

Our study has limitations. First, a small sample of DVI patients was included in this analysis. Nevertheless, to our knowledge, this was the first time DVI patients were analyzed with viscoelastic test such as thromboelastometry. Furthermore, most patients included in this report had primary DVI and were not severely ill, which might have affected and/or ameliorated their conventional coagulation tests results. Second, conventional coagulation tests abnormalities and bleeding disorders could be more pronounced in later stages during the course of disease and therefore not detected by our study. Third, dengue virus infection was confirmed by using immunochromatographic assays, which may lack sensitivity and specificity compared to real time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) for detection of IgM/IgG antibodies and NS1 antigen [40]. Finally, although Zika and Chikungunya viruses co-infections are well known today, they were unknown when this study was conducted [41]. Since diagnostic tools for Zika virus infection were not available in Brazil when the study was carried out, we cannot rule out Zika virus co-infection in our studied patients.

Outpatients with dengue virus infection and thrombocytopenia commonly exhibited impaired thromboelastometry despite normal conventional coagulation tests. That suggests viscoelastic tests might have a higher sensitivity to detect early coagulation abnormalities in this population of patients. Long-term outcomes and the question of whether or not transfusion resuscitation algorithms based on viscoelastic tests will improve outcomes in DVI patients with coagulopathy and bleeding needs to be further evaluated.