title: Fibrinogen/fibrin degradation products and D-dimer in clinical practice: interpretation of discrepant results.
abstract: In clinical practice, occasionally some patients show dissociated values of fibrinogen/fibrin degradation products (FDP) and D-dimer (cross-linked fibrin degradation products). In an attempt to assess the frequency, clinical backgrounds, and hemostatic states of these cases, FDP and D-dimer were simultaneously measured together with other hemostatic parameters in 371 samples from patients with various diseases. As a whole, FDP were elevated in parallel with the progress of activation of blood coagulation and fibrinolysis. However, in patients with elevated FDP and/or D-dimer, 11.5% of samples showed relatively lower D-dimer values than those expected from FDP levels, and these were regarded as an apparently dissociated group. In the dissociated group, activation of coagulation and fibrinolysis occurred to a lesser extent than others. Analysis of these samples suggested that the possible reasons for the dissociation between FDP and D-dimer values were accelerated fibrinogenolysis with or without secondary fibrinolysis, accelerated fibrinogenolysis by non-plasmic proteinases, elevated soluble fibrin, and possibly false-positive FDP levels due to unclottable fibrinogen remaining in the serum samples. In practice, simultaneous measurements of FDP and D-dimer are useful for more accurate estimation of hyperfibrinolytic states.
authors.affiliation: First Department of Internal Medicine, Niigata University School of Medicine, Japan.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sato
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Takahashi
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shibata
mesh_terms: D004194:Disease; D005338:Fibrin Fibrinogen Degradation Products / Q000378:metabolism*; D006487:Hemostasis; D006801:Humans
chemical_list: D005338:Fibrin Fibrinogen Degradation Products; C036309:fibrin fragment D