Can whole blood viscosity predict the development of acute mesenteric arterial thrombosis?

BACKGROUND: Acute mesenteric ischemia is a serious condition with high mortality rate, resulting internal organ damage and intestinal necrosis due to sudden occlusion in the arteries feeding the abdominal solid organs and intestines. The most common causes of acute mesenteric artery ischemia are embolic processes and thrombosis that develops on the basis of primary mesenteric artery atherosclerosis. Whole blood viscosity (WBV) was defined by De Simon and could be calculated with a formula that consists of total plasma protein and hematocrit (HCT). In our study, we aimed to investigate the predictive value of WBV for acute mesenteric ischemia caused by primary mesenteric artery occlusion. METHODS: Between January 2015 and February 2021, a total of 55 patients with a retrospective diagnosis of acute mesenteric ischemia (AMI) and 50 healthy volunteers as a control group were included in the study. WBV was calculated with the De Simon formula using the HCT and plasma protein levels from the blood tests of healthy volunteers and patients at the time of admission with acute abdomen. RESULTS: No significant differences between the two groups in terms of baseline demographic characteristics except the prevalence of age (72.1±12.4 vs. 65.7±6.4; p<0.001) and hypertension (40% vs. 23% p=0.002). AMI patients had significantly higher WBV values both at low shear rate (LSR) ([46.3±21.7 vs. 33.4±13.1, p<0.001] and high shear rate [HSR] [16.5±11 vs. 15.8±0.7, p<0.001]). The univariate analysis identified several variables for predicting AMI including age (odds ratio [OR]: 1.066 confidence interval [CI]: 1.023–1.111, p=0.003), hypertension (OR: 3.612 CI: 1.564–8.343, p=0.003), WBV at HSR (OR: 2.074 CI: 1.193–3.278, p=0.002), and WBV at LSR (OR: 2.156 CI: 1.331–3.492, p=0.002). However, after multivariate analysis, only hypertension (OR: 3.537 CI: 1.298–9.639, p=0.014) and age (OR: 1.085 CI: 1.026–1.147, p=0.004) showed significance. In receiver operating characteristic analysis, a cut-off value of 43.5 WBV for LSR had a 72% sensitivity and a 70% specificity for prediction of mesenteric ischemia patients (area under curve [AUC]: 0.743, p<0.001) and a cut-off value of 16.29 WBV for HSR had a 78% sensitivity and 76% specificity for prediction of mesenteric ischemia patients (AUC: 0.773, p<0.001). CONCLUSION: In our study, we determined that the WBV value obtained with the De Simon formula is a valuable parameter in predicting the development of acute mesenteric artery ischemia caused by primary mesenteric artery occlusion.