Research Article Comparison of Stress-Hemoconcentration Correction Techniques for Stress-Induced Coagulation

Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. When examining stress effects on coagulation, arithmetic correction is typically used to adjust for concomitant hemoconcentration but may be inappropriate for coagulation activity assays. We examined a new physiologically relevant method of correcting for stress-hemoconcentration. Blood was drawn from healthy men (N = 40) during baseline, mental stress, and recovery, and factor VII activity (FVII:C), factor VIII activity (FVIII:C), activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT), prothrombin time (PT%), fibrinogen, D-dimer, and plasma volume were determined.Three hemoconcentration correction techniques were assessed: arithmetic correction and two reconstitution techniques using baseline plasma or physiological saline. Area-under-the-curve (AUC)was computed for each technique. For FVII:C, uncorrectedAUCwas significantly greater thanAUCcorrected arithmetically. For PT%, uncorrectedAUCwas significantly greater thanAUC correctedwith saline or arithmetically. ForAPTT, uncorrectedAUC was significantly less than AUC corrected with saline and greater than AUC corrected arithmetically. For fibrinogen, uncorrected AUC was significantly greater than AUC corrected with saline or arithmetically. For D-dimer, uncorrected AUC was significantl