Investigating Abnormal Blood Clotting in Severe Chest Infections
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Coagulopathy in Chest Sepsis: A Cohort Study using TEG 6 Viscoelastic Testing
IRAS ID
264188
Contact name
Michael Spiro
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Royal Free NHS Foundation Trust
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
N/A, N/A
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 9 months, 1 days
Research summary
When people become unwell with a severe chest infection the changes that occur as a response to the infection causes problems with blood clotting. These clotting problems increase the risk of bleeding and needing a blood transfusion. They also in some cases lead to a higher chance of blood clotting in the wrong places with problems like deep vein thrombosis (a DVT) in the legs and clots in the lung. We also know that the more severe the problem with the blood clotting the greater the chance that patients will die due to their chest infection. However, a lot of the usual tests we have available to look at blood clotting are not very good at picking up the changes that occur during severe infections. More modern tests of blood clotting are much more better at picking these changes up but have not been well investigated during severe infection and we have no information as to how clotting changes over time in these settings.
We want to study adult patients who have severe chest infections and need to be admitted to an intensive care unit for their treatment. We aim to find out how patients’ clotting changes during the time of their admission to intensive care. This information will allow us to find out whether we need to change how we treat patients to reduce their risk of bleeding and also their risk of blood clots like DVTs. The information will also allow us to predict which patients are likely to suffer complications from their infection, or who are at the greatest risk of death. This will possibly allow us to intensify their treatment at an earlier stage, hopefully to improve their outcomes.
The study will be performed at the Royal Free Hospital intensive care unit and patients will be studied for at least three days and for up to two weeks. The study will involve taking a single blood sample each day (about two teaspoons of blood) to analyse. The patients in this study will already have a cannula (drip) in place that allows us to take blood samples without the need for any needles so the blood sample will be painless.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Leeds East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/YH/0267
Date of REC Opinion
5 Jan 2022
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion