It is well known that a new synthetic vasopressin 1-deamino-8-D-arginine vasopressin (DDAVP) increase factor VIII activity and is used for hemostatic control of hemophilia A patients.
DDAVP was injected intravenously to von Willebrand's disease patients and the coagulation, fibrinolysis and platelet functions were measured. Clinical application of DDAVP to von Willebrand's disease was also discussed.
Seven subjects with von Willebrand's disease (classical type 4, variant form 3) were injected 10 μg of DDAVP and act PTT, factor VIII activity (VIII: C), factor VIII like antigen (VIII R: AG), von Willebrand factor (VIII R: WF), bleeding time (BT), platelet retention (PR), ristocetin induced platelet aggregation (RIPA) and plasminogen activator (PA) were measured before and after 1 and 2 hours.
Except one severe case of classical type, all other cases showed shortening of act PTT, increase of VIII: C, VIII R: AG, VIII R: WF and PA, improvement of PR and RIPA and shortening of BT (classical type).
The grade of increase of VIII: C was 5.4 times and of VIII R: AG was 2.3 times. So, the discrepancy of VIII: C and VIII R: AG was recognized.
The increase pattern of VIII R: AG and VIII R: WF was very similar but the pattern was different from that of VIII: C.
In a case of genital bleeding, DDAVP injection showed transient improvement of hemorrhagic tendency.
DDAVP is useful for elucidation of mechanism and hemostatic control of von Willebrand's disease.
