Correlations between blood coagulation tests and histological findings in 65 cases of various liver diseases were evaluated and following conclusions were obtained.
1) Decreased coagulation factor activities and prolonged STT (enhanced fibrinolytic activity) were observed in all patients with liver diseases. These abnormalities of clotting and fibrinolytic functions were in parallel with the severity of histological changes in the liver.
2) In the cases with parenchymatous changes of the liver, activities of coagulation factor VII, IX and X were sensitively decreased, while factor II activity remained normal. When parenchymatous changes were accompanied by fibrosis, these changes were more prominent. Moreover, factor V activity showed the same tendency, which was statistically insignificant. However, fibrinogen content decreased only in the extremely severe cases.
Factor VIII activity was normal or increased and the behavior was different from the other clotting factors.
Among the numbers of screening tests for blood coagulability, TT activity revealed a significant decrease, reflecting the changes of clotting factors II, VII, IX and X (vitamin K dependent clotting factors), while 1 stage PT decreased significantly only in the cases with fibrosis of the liver: however, K-PTT did not show any abnomalities in these cases.
3) Even though there were fairly good correlations between coagulation studies and histological findings, there was some discrepancy between the results of blood coagulation tests of various liver diseases histologically diagnosed and those of the cases with some paticular histological pattern regardless the diagnosis. There was a reason why the histological diagnosis was dependent on the combination of individual histological findings.
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