Failure to measure plasma activated factor XIII during disseminated intravascular coagulation

The search for activated products of coagulation factors in blood is of considerable clinical interest because its detection would indicate activation of the clotting system. Factor XIII circulates as inactive zymogen and becomes enzymatically active after thrombin or factor Xa activation. Employing an amine-incorporating system, activated factor XIII was measured in normal and pathological plasma from leukemic patients with overt laboratory signs of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC). Only traces of the activated factor were detected in both normal and DIC plasma. The method, sensitive and specific, as shown by the results of measurements on the plasma of 8 patients with congenital deficiency and on normal serum, did not prove to be useful for detecting pathological in vivo thrombin generation.