Clinical significance of haemostatic tests in chronic liver disease.

Objective: To determine different haemostatic tests in patients with various degrees of liver parenchymal damage and to rule out their role in assessing parenchymal hepatocyte dysfunction. Methods: Seventy-five patients with chronic liver disease were included and due to their degree of liver damage catego-rized into three groups: group one patients with chronic viral hepatitis and early stage of fibrosis (n=30), group two patients with compensated cirrhosis (n=17) and group three patients with decompensated liver cirrhosis (n=28). The following hae-mostatic tests were measured: activated partial thromboplastin time, prothrombin time, plasma fibrinogen, antithrombin III and protein C and plasma D-dimer. Re-sults: Antithrombin III levels showed significant reduction in compensated (83.86 ± 19.49%) and decompensated cirrhosis (52.64 ± 14.31%; p