Methods and Applications of a Global Assay of Coagulation and Fibrinolysis

Unmet Need
Excessive blood clotting, or thrombotic disorders are a life threatening condition that can cause heart attacks, strokes, organ damage and death. Importantly, those who develop venous thromboembolism (VTE) are at a high risk of recurrence, with a third of patients having a recurrence in 10 years.  However, VTEs are often preventable with strategies that stop the development of clots in “at-risk” individuals. Consequently, predicting and preventing thrombotic events in at-risk individuals remains a critical challenge. There are limited prognostic tools that can measure the risk of recurrence in adult and pediatric VTE patients. The development of such a tool could assist in medical decision-making regarding the duration of anticoagulation treatment in the treatment and secondary prevention of VTE.
 
Technology Overview
JHU inventors have developed a prognostic tool to assess the risk of recurrent thromboembolic events in subjects who previously experienced a thrombotic event and underwent coagulation therapy. This tool relies upon the use of the Clot Formation and Lysis (CloFAL) global assay, which is able to measure the clot formation ("coagulation") and clot breakdown ("fibrinolysis") abilities of the blood. The inventors found that subjects with elevated relative rebound hypercoagulability, which is the relative change in CloFAL maximum amplitude values on biological samples taken at 3 months and 4-6 weeks post VTE, were at increased risk of recurrence.
 
Stage of Development
The inventors have developed this prognostic tool using a cohort of 88 pediatric VTE patients.

 

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