A Study of Certain Aspects of Blood Coagulation in the Postoperative State in Congestive Heart Failure and in Thrombophlebitis.

In recent years a number of tests have been designed for the purpose of detection of accelerated blood coagulation. Among these are the lusteroid tube coagulation test (1-4), the silicone tube coagulation test (5), the modified clot retraction test (6), the modified Lee-White clotting test, employing three test tubes instead of one (7), the heparin retarded coagulation test of Waugh and Ruddick (8, 9), the heparin tolerance test ( 10, 11 ), and the prothrombin time determination, using both whole and dilute plasma (12-14). The study reported herewith was undertaken for the following purposes. First, it was desired to ascertain whether or not there is any correlation among the various tests themselves. Second, it was decided to determine whether any of these tests can be used to predict thrombophlebitis in patients. Finally, the incidence and duration of hypercoagulability in the postoperative state was studied, as well as the incidence of hypercoagulability in congestive heart failure. Incident to doing these studies, observations were made on the effect of variation of tube size and temperature upon the clotting time of blood in the Lee-White test. Further, in doing the heparin tolerance test, blood was withdrawn almost simultaneously from the vein into which the heparin was injected and from a vein of the opposite arm. Clotting times were run on each sample and the results were compared.