Evidence for an ethanol mediated disruption of hemostasis

Male Sprague-Dawley rats were given 1 ml intraperitoneal (i.p.) injections of saline, 5, 10 or 20% ethanol once daily for 7 days. Clotting times were determined for the PT, APTT, FIB, and factors II, V, VII, VIII, X, and XII. The platelet count (PLT) and the hematocrit (HCT) were also determined. Besides a uniform statistically significant decrease in the platelet count, the clotting times for the coagulation factors were also influenced by the alcohol injected. The data tends to indicate that when the concentration of alcohol was greater, that more clotting times were influenced. Detailed analysis of the data in reference to the total clotting cascade tends to suggest that ethanol principally prolongs the clotting times of the intrinsic pathway, while the extrinsic pathway appears to be unaffected by the treatment, and the common pathway is normal to accelerated in clotting times. This suggests that hemostasis as a whole was not affected by the treatment, but specific portions of the clotting cascade were, and development of abnormal hemostasis due to ethanol might depend on which part of the pathway was activated.