Fibrinolytic activity in Nigerian diabetics with renal insufficiency

Diabetics have reduced fibrinolytic activity while chronic renal failure patients are prone to both haemorrhagic diathesis and reduced fibrinolysis. In the quest to find out what obtains when diabetics develop renal impairment, fibrinolytic activity was studied in 51 known diabetics consisting of 9 diabetics with normal renal function, 13 with mild renal impairment and 29 in chronic renal failure. No patient had end-stage renal disease and none was on dialysis therapy. Plasma fibrinogen concentration (PFC) was measured using clot weight method and euglobulin lysis time (ELT) as a measure of fibrinolytic activity was also measured. Our results show that PFC and ELT did not differ significantly in the different groups of diabetics. There was also no correlation between the serum creatinine of all diabetics and PFC on one hand and ELT on the other hand. We conclude that Nigerian diabetics probably still benefit from enhanced fibrinolysis before they reach end-stage renal disease.