Background: The pathogenesis of chronic spontaneous urticaria (CU) has recently been conceived to be associated with thrombin generation through the extrinsic coagulation pathway. However, little is known about the components of the intrinsic coagulation pathway potentially involved.
Methods: To investigate the whole process of coagulation, both classical coagulation assays and a global coagulation test, the intrinsic coagulation pathway-dependent activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) clot waveform analysis, were performed using plasma of 36 patients with CU who had various severities.
Results: Classical coagulation assays revealed that levels of fibrinogen, D-dimer, and fibrin and fibrinogen degradation products (FDP), and positive rates of soluble fibrin monomer complex (SFMC) were significantly elevated in patients with CU, whereas the elevation of prothrombin fragment 1 + 2 was not statistically significant. On the other hand, all parameters of a global coagulation test, APTT clot waveform analysis, evidently showed a hypercoagulable pattern and were significantly correlated to disease severity of CU.
Conclusions: CU is characterized by elevated blood coagulation potential with involvement of the intrinsic coagulation factors, which may contribute in vivo to the generation of fibrin even by small amounts of thrombin.
© 2010 John Wiley & Sons A/S.