Haemorrhagic diathesis due to deficiency of factor VII.

Of recent years it has become apparent that Quick's one-stage prothrombin time, although a most useful routine laboratory test, does not specifically measure plasma prothrombin. Quick himself (1947) recognized that deficiency of his labile factor (Factor V) caused lengthening of the prothrombin time, and Owren (1947) reported the first case of congenital deficiency of Factor V causing a haemorrhagic state which he termed " parahaemophilia." It is now known that a prolonged prothrombin time may result from lack of another factor which normally develops in serum during coagulation, and has been named by various workers " serum prothrombin conversion accelerator (Alexander), "convertin " (Owren), and Factor VII (Koller, Loeliger, and Duckert, 1951). Only two undoubted cases of congenital deficiency of this factor have so far been described, the first by Alexander, Goldstein, Landwehr, and Cook (1951), and another by Owren (1952). The following case appears to be the third example.