[Inherited bleeding disorders in adolescents with excessive menstrual bleeding. Should we evaluate the fibrinolytic pathway?] / Trastornos hereditarios de la coagulación en adolescentes con sangrado menstrual excesivo, ¿debemos evaluar la vía fibrinolítica?

INTRODUCTION: Heavy Menstrual Bleeding (EMB) is a frequent problem in adolescence. The prevalence of inherited bleeding disorders (IBD) as a cause of EMB is not well established and the involvement of fibri nolytic pathway defects has been poorly explored. OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence of IBD and fibrinolysis defects in adolescents with EMBs. PATIENTS AND METHOD: 93 adolescents (11 to 18 years old) were included. Personal and family history of bleeding were obtained through a standard ized questionnaire. The following lab tests were performed: prothrombin time (PT), activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT), von Willebrand factor quantification, and platelet count and function. Those patients who were not diagnosed with IBD were further evaluated with clot lysis time assay. RESULTS: 41 patients (44%) were diagnosed as IBD (Von Willebrand disease n = 28, platelet func tion defects n=8, mild hemophilia n = 5. Decreased clot lysis time was found in 31 patients. 54% of patients diagnosed with IBD had EMB as the first hemorrhagic manifestation. CONCLUSION: These results support the need to evaluate the coagulation process, including the fibrinolytic pathway in the study of adolescents with EMB.

Search for unrelated donor umbilical cord blood units for allogeneic stem cell transplantation: results in two time periods.

UNLABELLED: Umbilical cord blood (UCB) banks have increased their stock worldwide in the past years. There are more than 230,000 available units today. The ideal UCB graft is a unit that is matched in five or six of six HLA. A, B (low-resolution) and DRB1 (high-resolution) alleles and which has over 2.5 x 107 nucleated cells/kg body weight (BW). Four of six matched units are also used specially if the cell dose gives more than 3 x 10(7) nucleated cells/kg BW. Our unrelated donor UCB transplant program was started in 1996 searching international cord blood banks (Netcord, New York) for patients with a definitive or potential indication for stem cell transplantation who lacked a matched family donor. PATIENTS AND METHODS: From 1995 to 1996, a search was initiated for 87 patients with malignant (n = 56, 37 acute leukemia) and nonmalignant conditions (16 congenital diseases, 14 aplastic anemia). Patient data along with low-resolution A, B, and DR typing were sent to the New York Blood Center, along with a blood sample for high-resolution DRB1 typing. Parallel searches were done in the Netcord database among UCB units with reported high-resolution DRB1 typing. Forty-eight searches were done between 1995 and 2000 (31 with high resolution) and 39 were done between 2000 and 2005 (33 with high resolution). UCB units were considered adequate if they had more than 2.7 x 10(7) cells/kg BW. RESULTS: During the first period, four patients (13%) matched five of six high-resolution unit and 21 (67%) a four of six match. During the second period, 15 patients (46%) found a five of six match and 16 (48%) a four of six match (P = .012). CONCLUSION: Nearly half of our patients find an optimal matched UCB unit for transplantation in international banks. The creation of a local UCB bank in our country is supported by these data.