von Willebrand factor and D-dimer to evaluate the thrombosis risk in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation in anti-coagulant therapy / 中华检验医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the performance of von willebrand factor antigen (vWFAg) and D-dimer in predicting thrombotic risk in nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) patients with anticoagulant therapy.Methods:From March 2017 to March 2019, 256 patients were enrolled, including 152 males and 104 females, aged (57.9±20.4) years old; according to the end-point events during the follow-up period, the patient group was further divided into 227 cases in the no-event group and 29 cases in the thrombotic event group;50 cases in the control group, including 30 males and 20 females, aged (45.0±5.3) years old. vWFAg was detected by blood coagulation instrument and determination of D-dimer was done by fluor-euzyme linked immunoassay Analyzer. Mann-Whitney U test was used for data comparison between any two groups, Kruskal-Wallis H test was used for comparison among multiple groups and multivariate correlation analysis was done by Logistic regression to obtain odds ratio ( OR). The prediction performance with thrombotic events of vWFAg and D-dimer was evaluated by ROC curve, Kaplan-Meier curve was used to analyze the survival curve and the hazard ratio ( HR) was obtained by Cox proportional hazard regression model. Results:The levels of vWFAg and D-dimer in the control group were 103% (86%-131%) and 249 (90-522) μg/L, 234% (102%-623%) and 744 (100-3 352) μg/L in the patient group; in the patient group, of which 225% (102%-623%) and 650 (100-3 281) μg/L in non-event group, 333% (210%-494%) and 1 325 (487-3 352) μg/L in thrombus event group; compared the healthy control, the levels of vWFAg and D-dimer were increased in patients group ( P<0.001), of which non-event groups were higher than healthy controls ( P<0.001), and the thrombotic event group was higher than that of the non-event group ( P<0.001). Plasma vWFAg level and D-dimer level in NVAF patients were higher than those in the control group ( P<0.001). Plasma vWFAg level and D-dimer level in the non-event group were significantly higher than those in the healthy control group ( P<0.001). The plasma vWFAg and D-dimer levels of patients in the thrombotic event group were significantly higher than those in the non-event group patients ( P<0.001). The result of ROC showed that the critical value of vWF Ag for predicting thrombosis within 3 months of NVAF patients was 229% and area under the curve (AUC) was 0.839 (95% CI0.784-0.894); When the critical value of D-dimer was 588 ng/ml, AUC was 0.803 (95% CI0.745-0.861).While vWFAg combined with D-dimer, AUC was 0.868 (95% CI0.826-0.909). Logistic regression analysis showed that plasma vWFAg level in NVAF patients was significantly correlated with age ( OR=10.240, 95%CI 2.773-37.820), congestive heart failure ( OR=34.779, 95%CI 8.010-151.019), hypertension ( OR=0.068, 95%CI 0.023-0.198) and type 2 diabetes ( OR=6.618, 95%CI 2.469-17.734) ( P<0.001), as well as was significantly correlated with vascular disease ( OR=4.801, 95%CI 1.204-19.145) ( P=0.026). Plasma D-dimer level was significantly correlated with congestive heart failure ( OR=0.146, 95%CI 0.036-0.588) and medication compliance ( OR=0.114, 95%CI 0.016-0.832) ( P value was 0.007 and 0.032). Survival analysis showed that the cumulative probability of thrombosis within 3 months was significantly increased (Log-rank χ2 was 11.394, 17.895 and 32.825 respectively, P value<0.001) in the patients with plasma levels above the critical value of vWFAg, D-dimer or vWFAg combined with D-dimer. Cox proportional regression model showed that neither vWFAg nor D-dimer could independently predict thrombotic events during anticoagulant therapy( HR was 0.866 and 0.834, P-value was 0.253 and 0.152, respectively), but it could improve the prediction performance significantly( HR=0.780, P=0.048) for combined application of both vWFAg and D-dimer. Conclusion:The changes with plasma vWFAg and D-dimer levels in NVAF patients were associated with a variety of clinicopathological factors and closely related to the risk of thrombosis within 3 months. Combined application could provide the effective basis for clinical prediction of the condition.