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Updated: Nov 24, 2025
Leveraging Turbidity and Thromboelastography for Complementary Clot Characterization
Published on: June 4, 2020
Establishment of normal reference intervals in dogs using a viscoelastic point-of-care coagulation monitor and its
Yekaterina Buriko1, Kenneth Drobatz1, Deborah C Silverstein1
1Department of Clinical Sciences and Advanced Medicine, Veterinary Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Background:
Viscoelastic coagulation devices are a useful adjunct to the evaluation of hemostasis in veterinary patients. VCM Vet is a point-of-care device that is simple in operation and could be used to diagnose and trend hemostatic abnormalities in sick patients. VCM Vet does not use activators.
Objectives:
We aimed to establish reference intervals (RIs) for VCM Vet in a healthy adult canine population and concurrently perform thromboelastographic (TEG) analysis on these samples with and without tissue factor (TF) activation for RI comparisons.
Methods:
Duplicate VCM Vet tests were performed immediately upon sample collection. Two concurrent TEG tests were performed on the remaining blood, one citrated, untreated (CU), and one activated with TF at a 1:3600 dilution.
Results:
Fifty-two dogs were enrolled in the study. The following RIs were generated for VCM Vet machine 1 and 2, respectively: clot time (CT) (seconds) 163-480 and 172-457; clot formation time (CFT) (seconds) 104-288 and 94-252, α-angle (degrees) 41-65 and 44-66, and maximum clot firmness (MCF) (no units) 27-43 and 30-46. Moderate to good correlations were observed between the two machines with Lin's concordance correlation coefficients of 0.51-0.9 and a P < 0.002. TEG RIs were similar to previously reported values.
Conclusions:
VCM Vet RIs were generated. Each VCM Vet device should have a unique RI established due to inter-device variability. Direct correlations of VCM Vet values with TEG parameters were not performed due to the narrow range of the normal values and the need to evaluate patients with a wide range of hemostatic abnormalities.
