The Diagnostic Value of the Anti-PF4/Heparin Immunoassay High-Dose Heparin Confirmatory Test in Cardiac Surgery Patients

There are limited and conflicting data on how a confirmatory step using high-dose heparin can improve diagnostic specificity of the antiplatelet factor 4/heparin enzyme immunoassay for heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT). We investigated sera from a recently published study on cardiac surgery patients and found that only half of the sera that were heparin-induced platelet activation assay positive could be inhibited (optical density <40%) by high-dose heparin (100 IU/mL) in the enzyme immunoassay. More importantly, only 2 of the 3 patients with definite HIT were confirmatory test positive. Therefore, the high-dose heparin confirmatory test should be used with caution to exclude platelet-activating antiplatelet factor 4/heparin antibodies or clinical HIT. (Anesth Analg 2011;112:774-6)