[Hemostatic disorders in a severe course of icterohemorrhagic leptospirosis (a clinico-morphological study)]

Morphologic studies were made on the brain tissue and internal organs of those deceased (n = 75) who had died of leptospirosis icterohemorrhagica during different periods of the condition, with the results obtained being compared to clinical and laboratory findings. It has been shown that realization of the pathogenic potential of the disease-producing germ is exercised both through direct generalized injury to the endothelium of microvessels, parenchymal cells (predominantly those of the liver and kidneys) by toxic substances of Leptospira and (to a larger degree) through disorders of hemostasis presented as thrombosis of vessels of the microcirculatory bed with subsequent development of hemorrhagic manifestations and alterative changes of hypoxic genesis in vital organs. Early haemocoagulatory disorders are characterized by marked and stable hypocoagulation, with direction of the processes of fibrin formation and fibrinolysis being different, which fact is consistent with diversity of structural formations originating from fibrin in the microcirculatory bed of the deceased. Prophylaxis of grave pathologic changes in the organism leading to lethal outcome consists in correction of hemostatic disorders during early phases of the disease course, which is to be pathogenetically substantiated and situational one because of the problem posed by verification of stages of that syndrome of disseminated intravascular coagulation in patients with grave course of leptospirosis icterohemorrhagica.