Thrombocytopenia in cirrhosis: Impact of fibrinogen on bleeding risk

AIM: To investigate the relationship between baseline platelet count, clauss fibrinogen, maximum amplitude (MA) on thromboelastography, and blood loss in orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT). METHODS: A retrospective analysis of our OLT Database (2006-2015) was performed. Baseline haematological indices and intraoperative blood transfusion requirements, as a combination of cell salvage return and estimation of 300 mls/unit of allogenic blood, was noted as a surrogate for intraoperative bleeding. Two groups: Excessive transfusion (> 1200 mL returned) and No excessive transfusion (< 1200 mL returned) were analysed. All data analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics version 23. RESULTS: Of 322 OLT patients, 77 were excluded due to fulminant disease; redo transplant or baseline haemoglobin (Hb) of < 80 g/L. One hundred and fourteen (46.3%) were classified into the excessive transfusion group, 132 (53.7%) in the no excessive transfusion group. Mean age and gender distribution were similar in both groups. Baseline Hb (P ≤ 0.001), platelet count (P = 0.005), clauss fibrinogen (P = 0.004) and heparinase MA (P = 0.001) were all statistically significantly different. Univariate logistic regression with a cut-off of platelets < 50 × 10(9)/L as the predictor and Haemorrhage as the outcome showed an odds ratio of 1.393 (95%CI: 0.758-2.563; P = 0.286). Review of receiver operating characteristic curves showed an area under the curve (AUC) for platelet count of 0.604 (95%CI: 0.534-0.675; P = 0.005) as compared with AUC for fibrinogen level, 0.678 (95%CI: 0.612-0.744; P ≤ 0.001). A multivariate logistic regression shows United Kingdom model for End Stage Liver Disease (P = 0.006), Hb (P = 0.022) and Fibrinogen (P = 0.026) to be statistically significant, whereas Platelet count was not statistically significant. CONCLUSION: Platelet count alone does not predict excessive transfusion. Additional investigations, e.g., clauss fibrinogen and viscoelastic tests, provide more robust assessment of bleeding-risk in thrombocytopenia and cirrhosis.