[Blood coagulation during prolonged postoperative parenteral feeding containing lipids]

Blood coagulation was studied in two groups of fifteen patients of the same type during parenteral nutrition lasting for more then ten days and given during the postoperative period. The first batch of patients, taken as a control group, received parenteral nutrition with carbohydrates and proteins, whilst the second group received lipids in addition. Study of blood coagulation, carried out every three days, involved : thromboelastogen on whole blood and plasma, platelet count, platelet adhesiveness and the estimation of factors II, V, VII and X, fibrinogen, plasminogen and fibrinogen break-down products. In the patients not receiving lipids, the normal alterations seen during the postoperative period occurred : normalisation in plasminogen levels and in F.B.P., and an increase in the number of platelets and in fibrinogen level. The presence of lipids in the nutritional fluids resulted in changes in the same direction, but the increase in platelet count was slighter and fibrinogen level, after a slight increase, returned to initial values on the 20th day of parenteral nutrition. Fibrinogen was the only factor which showed any significant difference between the two groups.