Impaired blood clot contraction predicts imminent postoperative thrombosis

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Oct 27 2020

The co-authors are employees of the Protein-Cell Interactions Lab of Kazan Federal University (Natalia G. Evtugina, Alina D. Peshkova, and Lab Head Rustem I. Litvinov) in cooperation with Interregional Clinical Diagnostic Center, Kazan, Russia (Arseniy A. Pichugin) and University of Pennsylvania (John W. Weisel and Rustem I. Litvinov by his primary employment).

It is well-known that surgeries can be complicated by life-threatening thromboses that are hard to predict and not easy to prevent. The authors managed to find a new prognostic laboratory sign of the imminent postoperative thrombosis; remarkably, this sign appears on the first postoperative day, a few days before deep vein thrombosis of the lower limbs develops.

The laboratory indication of the upcoming thrombosis is the impaired contraction or shrinkage of a clot made from the blood of a patient. It has been shown that if blood clot contraction is normally strong and fast, the risk of thrombotic complications is quite small. On the contrary, if on the first day after surgery clot contraction is suppressed, there is a high likelihood of thrombosis development, and immediate prophylactic measures should be taken to prevent this adverse postoperative complication. This study is a continuation of a series of publications in international scientific journals on a novel and original clinical laboratory assay based on the quantitative characterization of the blood clot contraction kinetics.

The published work is a vivid example of translational medicine that uses accomplishments of fundamental biomedical science to promote enhancements in the prevention, diagnosis, and therapies of diseases. Based on the basic studies of molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying blood clot contraction, the authors consistently implement their laboratory test into clinical practice to aid physicians who often deal with the problems of bleeding and thrombosis. An important feature of severe thrombotic complications is that they occur in various diseases, which emphasizes the extreme importance of research and development in this field.

The potential area of practical applications of the clot contraction assay is growing gradually but surely. The authors continue to use the test to evaluate the risk of thrombotic complications in other pathologies, such as COVID-19, fetal loss and miscarriage, autoimmune diseases, and other conditions associated with disorders of blood clotting.