Prothrombin fragment 1+2 and fibrinogen in Thai type 2 diabetic patients.

ABSTRACT

Since the evidence for the hypercoagulable state in terms of prothrombin fragment 1+2 (F1+2) in Thai diabetic patients has never been reported, we studied plasma F1+2 levels in 68 type 2 diabetic patients and in 20 normal age-matched volunteers. Fibrinogen, D- dimer, glucose, HbA1C, cholesteroi, triglyceride, HDL-cholesterol and creatinine were also determined. It was found that the levels of F1+2 and fibrinogen in the diabetic patients were significantly higher than in the controls (p<0.001 and p<0.01 respectively), while D-dimer was detected positively in 17 out of 64 patients whereas none could be detected in the 20 healthy volunteers. A total of 23 out of 68 patients had higher levels of F1+2 than the normal range. When we compared the clinical characteristics, blood chemistry analysis and hypercoagulable markers of the diabetic patients between the groups of high F1+2 and normal F1+2, there were significantly higher numbers of positive D-dimer cases in the high F1+2 group compared with the normal F1+2 group (p=1.01). The correlation between F1+2 vs diabetic duration was 0.29 with p value less than 0.05. This study suggests that there are hypercogulable states in Thai diabetic patients.