VWF/FVIII complex and the management of patient with inhibitors: from laboratory to clinical practice

We and others have previously shown that inhibitor containing plasma from patients with congenital haemophilia A sometimes reacts less with von Willebrand factor (VWF) containing concentrates compared with highly purified plasma-derived or recombinant factor VIII (FVIII) concentrates. To further substantiate the haemostatic role of a variation in inhibitor reactivity with different FVIII concentrates, we compared the inhibitor titres from 11 plasma samples against a panel of FVIII concentrates and correlated titre with the capacity to inhibit thrombin generation. Three plasma-derived concentrates were tested: Fandhi (Grifols) which contains VWF with a final ratio of approximately 1 (VWF IU per IU FVIII:C); Haemate (CSL Behring) with a ratio of 2.5 and Haemofil M (Baxter), a monoclonal antibody-purified concentrate containing only trace amounts of VWF. In addition, the recombinant FVIII concentrate Kogenate Bayer (Bayer) containing no VWF was included in the panel. A statistically significant difference in measured titres against the four concentrates was found. The inhibitor titre needed to inhibit 50% maximum thrombin generation was lowest for Kogenate Bayer and highest and similar for Fandhi and Haemate. This study confirms the results from previous research regarding variation of inhibitor reactivity against different concentrates and further shows that the VWF containing concentrates Fandhi and Haemate added to FVIII-deficient plasma with the presence of inhibitor generate more thrombin than do the purified concentrates Haemofil M and Kogenate Bayer. A further interesting aspect could be that bypass therapy may have an increased efficacy when infused together with FVIII concentrates containing VWF. However, the clinical implications of all these findings in vitro need to be established.