[Coagulation factors during the development of common viral hepatitis]

The authors have analysed the development of various coagulation factors in 104 cases of common virus hepatitis in young adults. Total plasma coagulability, the prothrombin complex, factors VIII and IX, fibrination and fibrinolysis were followed up during this evolution and compared, using the usual statistical methods, with the results of the same investigations carried out on 100 healthy subjects belonging to the same age-group and on 31 patients suffering from cirrhosis of the liver. Statistical methods showed up the slightest disturbances of any significance which would have been overlooked if individual results only had been examined. As it was, there was total plasma hypercoagulability which was at its maximum at the onset of development but which persisted until the 7th week. It was mainly connected with an abnormality at the second stage of fibrination, that is : polymerisation of the fibrin monomers. The results obtained do not allow a conclusion to be drawn as to whether there exists an antipolymerase or dysfibrinogenaemia. Later research dealing specifically with the chemical structure of fibrinogen in hepatitis should provide further information. In practice, assessment of total plasma coagulability, using cephalinkaolin time, and analysis of fibrination by thrombin time are of definite value on account of their sensitivity.