Dry-system Coagulation Analyzer Used to Detect Canine Blood Coagulopathy

Abstract

Prothrombin time (PT), activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT), and plasma fibrinogen concentration (pfg) were measured to evaluate the usefulness of a dry-system coagulation analyzer (DRY method) to detect canine blood coagulopathy. The samples were plasma treated with 3.2% sodium citrate. A wet-system coagulometer (WET method) was used for PT and APTT assays of 30 abnormal samples with prolonged PT and/or APPT. The WET method was also used to determine the pfg of 15 abnormally high or low samples. Values for PT (r=0.675), APTT (r=0.551), and pfg (r=0.945) obtained with the DRY method correlated well with those obtained with the WET method (P<0.0001). The DRY method detected prolongation in all PT samples and in 29 APTT samples but failed to detect abnormalities of 10 samples with low pfg that the WET method did detect. Variation of coefficients in the DRY method ranged from 2.0 to 5.2% in the intra-assay of each measurement, indicating a high degree of precision.