“Haemostasis time”, a modified bleeding time test and its comparison with the Duke and Ivy/template bleeding times

Summary

“Haemostasis time” (HT), the occlusion time of a Butterfly 25 short cannula inserted into the cubital vein, is a bleeding time modification comparable to the skin bleeding times according to Duke and Ivy/Mielke. It also measures platelet function and is not influenced more than the latter tests by clotting factors [11]. In HT, subendothelium is replaced by a standard artificial surface. The technique was investigated in patients with haemophilia A and B, von Willebrand's disease (vWD), and defects of factors VII and XI. HT was prolonged in 9/16 patients with haemophilia A/B, but did not correlate with the factor VIII:C/IX:C values. However, it reflected the different bleeding tendencies in those patients as represented by early or late onset of bleeding symptoms and occurrence of spontaneous haemarthroses. Of the vWD patients, not classified by multimeric analysis, 15/31 had prolonged Simplate II bleeding times, 14/31 prolonged HTs. Only 20/31 patients had corresponding normal or prolonged bleeding times with both techniques. HT correlated significantly with the Duke bleeding time (p=0.011), ristocetin cofactor activity (p=0.003) and von Willebrand factor antigen (p=0.022), while no correlations were found between these parameters and the Simplate II method. Statistical evaluation shows, that in vWD, HT can replace the less precise Duke bleeding time but not the non-related Ivy/Simplate techniques.