[Status of the hemostatic system in patients with chronic lung diseases]

Blood rheologic properties and homeostasis system were comprehensively examined in 23 patients with fibrous-cavernous pulmonary tuberculosis and 58 patients with various chronic nonspecific pulmonary diseases complicated by respiratory failure. The patients were found to have signs of erythrocyte edema, their more rapid depletion, lower resistance and higher aggregation which was accompanied by increased hematocrit and normal erythrocyte count. The thromboelastograms showed that all all phases of blood coagulation were shortened and fibrinolysis was deeply depressed. There was an increase in activated partial thromboplastin and thrombin time, a reduction in the values of the prothrombin indices and antithrombin III activity and higher heparin levels. The fibrinogen level was either normal or reduced despite an increase in other acute phase reactants, followed by the appearance of large amounts of blocked fibrinogen in the blood. Analysis of the findings enabled one to regard a combination of the above changes as signs of the latent DIC syndrome. Determination of fibrin and fibrinogen degradation products in a deep and long-term inhibition of fibrinolysis loses its diagnostic significance.