Clinical Validation of Global Coagulation Tests to Guide Blood Component Transfusions in Cirrhosis and ACLF

Patients with cirrhosis and acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) may have bleeding complications and need for invasive procedures. Point-of-care (POC) coagulation tests like thromboelastography (TEG) and Sonoclot may be better for guiding patient management than the standard coagulation tests (SCTs), like prothrombin time, platelet count and international normalized ratio.

We prospectively compared and validated the POC tests and SCTs in 70 persons with ACLF and 72 persons with decompensated cirrhosis who had clinical bleeding and checked for episodes of re-bleeding and transfusion requirements. We assessed pre-procedure requirement of blood components when correction was done based on an SCT or POC strategy.

Episodes of bleeding were seen in 45% and 28% of ACLF and cirrhosis patient, respectively (p=0.036), with the major site of bleeding being gastrointestinal (31% and 16%, respectively). Platelet counts correlated with TEG-maximum amplitude in cirrhosis (p=0.045) and prothrombin time correlated positively with TEG-reaction (R) time (p=0.032), TEG-Clot kinetics (K) time (p=0.042), Son-activated clotting time (p=0.038) and negatively with clot rate (p=0.043) in ACLF, making these correctable target variables in POC transfusion algorithms. Of 223 procedures, transfusion of fresh frozen plasma and platelet concentrate was reduced by 25% (p=0.035) and 20.8% (p=0.045) by using a POC strategy in 76 patients. Correction of deranged Son-activated clotting time and TEG-reaction time was noted in 68% and 72% after 24 h of fresh frozen plasma transfusion in ACLF and 85% and 80% in cirrhosis, respectively.

Our study clinically validates that POC tests can better detect coagulation defects and transfusion thresholds in ACLF and cirrhosis, whereas use of conventional tests appear to be less suitable in patients with clinical bleeding.

NCT04332484.