Subject(s)
Infant Mortality , Microcephaly/epidemiology , Pregnancy Complications, Infectious/epidemiology , Zika Virus Infection/congenital , Zika Virus Infection/mortality , Adult , Brazil/epidemiology , Cross-Sectional Studies , Female , Humans , Infant , Infant, Newborn , Microcephaly/etiology , Pregnancy , Zika Virus Infection/complicationsABSTRACT
D-Dimer is a biomarker of fibrin formation and degradation. While a D-dimer within normal limits is used to rule out the diagnosis of deep venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism among patients with a low clinical probability of venous thromboembolism (VTE), the prognostic association of an elevated D-dimer with adverse outcomes has received far less emphasis. An elevated D-dimer is independently associated with an increased risk for incident VTE, recurrent VTE, and mortality. An elevated D-dimer is an independent correlate of increased mortality and subsequent VTE across a broad variety of disease states. Therefore, medically ill subjects in whom the D-dimer is elevated constitute a high risk subgroup in which the prospective evaluation of the efficacy and safety of antithrombotic therapy is warranted.
