'Point-of-care' D-dimer testing

Abstract

D-dimer testing is efficient in the exclusion of venous thromboembolism (VTE). D-dimer laborator y assays are predominantly performed in centralised laboratories in intra-hospital settings although most patients with suspected VTE are presented in primary care. On the other hand decreasing turnaround time for laboratory testing may significantly improve efficacy in emergency departments. Therefore an introduction of a rapid, easy to perform point of care (POC) assay for the identification of D-dimer may offer improvement in diagnostics flow of VTE both in primary care and emergency departments while it could also improve our diagnostic possibilities in some other severe clinical conditions (e.g. disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) and aortic aneurism (AA)) associated with increased D-dimer. Several POC D-dimer assays have been evaluated and majority of them have met the criteria for rapid and safe exclusion of VTE. In our hands three assays (Stratus, Pathfast and Cardiac) have the laboratory performance profile comparable with our routine D-dimer laboratory assay (Tinaqaunt).

Keywords

• d-dimer
• vte
• poc