Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
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Trans. R. Soc. Trop. Med. Hyg. · Jul 2012
The role of prothrombin time (PT) in evaluating green pit viper (Cryptelytrops sp) bitten patients.
Viper bites cause consumptive coagulopathy resulting in hypofibrinogenaemia. Whole-blood clotting time is a standard test used to assess bleeding risk. Prothrombin time (PT) and activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) are better standardised assays that are widely available, but their diagnostic accuracy in viper bites remains unknown. ⋯ The respective specificities were 94.4%, 95.8%, 95.6% and 72.4%. Three hypofibrinogenaemic patients who did not receive antivenom because of VCT <30min had persistently normal VCT and went home without clinical bleeding. In conclusion, PT with INR can be an alternative test for evaluation of coagulopathy in green pit viper bitten patients with potentially improved inter-laboratory standardisation.