Whole blood viscosity assessment issues II: Prevalence in endothelial dysfunction and hypercoagulation

BACKGROUND: Virchow's triad in cardiovascular disease comprises blood viscosity, plasma D-dimer and homocysteine as indices of three associated but separate vascular phenomena. AIMS: This work investigates prevalence of hyperviscosity in hyperhomocysteinaemia and positive D-dimer; and differences or similarities in stasis status among sub-populations of hyperhomocysteinaemia vs. normohomocysteinaemia and negative vs. positive D-dimer. PATIENTS AND METHODS: 10-years de-identified archived clinical pathology data for the period of January 1999 to December 2008 were audited. All cases tested for D-dimer (n=6845) and homocysteine (n=1665), which were concomitantly tested for haematocrit and total proteins, were extracted. RESULTS: The results show a very low prevalence of hyperviscosity associated with a positive D-dimer sub-population (1.48%), which is not statistically different in comparison with the negative D-dimer sub-population. The prevalence of hyperviscosity associated with hyperhomocysteinaemia (5.04%) was statistically significantly higher in comparison to the normohomocysteinaemia sub-population (p = 0.05). The prevalence of low viscosity is significantly higher in the positive D-dimer sub-population relative to the negative D-dimer sub-population (p < 0.00001), but not different between hyperhomocysteinaemia vs. normohomocysteinaemia. Normoviscosity is statistically significantly commoner in normoviscosity relative to hyper-homocysteinaemia as well as in negative compared with positive D-dimer (p < 0.00001). CONCLUSION: The findings reported here suggest putting into perspective the specificity of whole blood viscosity relative to stasis, not necessarily sensitivity to disease conditions where it is implicated.