COAGULATION PROFILES OF ADULT SICKLE CELL PATIENTS IN STEADY STATE

Ajayi A. Ibijola*, Abiodun I. Okunlola and Omotola T. Ojo

ABSTRACT

Background: Sickle cell disease is considered to be a prothrombotic state and this has a lot of influence on the associated complications of this disease condition if not put into consideration during the course of treatment. Therefore, the knowledge of the coagulation profiles in these patients will improve the treatment outcome especially during the periodic crises and perioperative period. Objective: To evaluate coagulation profiles of the adult sickle cell patients in steady state. Methods: This is a comparative cross sectional study. Forty HbS patients in steady state attending Haematology clinic and 40 age and sex matched healthy HbAA controls were recruited. Liver function (LFT) was done with Hitachi 912. Results: Both males and females HbS patients had relatively higher median APTT than their male and female counterparts in the control subjects. (P=0.025). Male HbS patients had higher median (25-75 percentiles) Prothrombin Time than their counterparts in the control group. The female HbS patients had similar median Prothrombin Time with the control subjects. The median test shows no statistically significant difference in the prothrombin time between the HbS patients and the control HbA patients (P=1.000). Conclusion: Coagulation profile in sickle cell patients in steady state is higher compared with the HbA control subjects but this is not statistically significant. The prolonged coagulation profile may be as a result of increased consumption of coagulation factors following activation of coagulation and fibrinolytic systems in sickle cell patients even at steady state and not necessarily due to hepatic dysfunction.

Keywords: Sickle cell anaemia; coagulation profile; steady state; adult patient; liver function.