Direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) may cause false negative results of antithrombin (AT) deficiency screening.
To evaluate the impact of DOAC-Stop, an agent reversing in vitro effects of DOACs, on AT testing in anticoagulated patients.
We assessed 130 venous thromboembolism patients aged 46.7 ± 13.5 years. Blood samples were collected 2 to 27 hours after DOAC intake from 49 patients on rivaroxaban, 54 on apixaban, and 27 on dabigatran. Antithrombin activity was assessed using the activated factor X (FXa)-based and the activated factor II (FIIa)-based method twice, before and after DOAC-Stop treatment, together with plasma DOAC levels using coagulometric assays.
The use of DOAC-Stop did not influence AT activity measured using the FIIa-based assay, whereas there was a marked decrease in AT activity determined using the FXa-based assay (ΔAT = 16.9%; 95% CI, 12.9%-19.1%). The AT-FIIa assay revealed decreased AT level (<79%) in all 10 (7.7%) genetically confirmed AT-deficient patients treated with rivaroxaban or apixaban (n = 5 each), whereas the AT-FXa assay showed decreased AT activity (<83%) in 2 subjects on rivaroxaban and 1 on apixaban with low plasma DOAC concentrations (<90 ng/mL). After DOAC-Stop median AT-FXa activity lowered from 83.5% (interquartile range, 66%-143%) to 65.5% (interquartile range, 57%-75%; P = .005; ΔAT = 18%) in AT-deficient patients, without any false negative results. The ΔAT in the FXa-based assay correlated with rivaroxaban and apixaban concentrations in the AT-deficient patients (r = 0.99, P < .001).
Application of DOAC-Stop enables reliable evaluation of AT deficiency screening in patients taking rivaroxaban or apixaban and tested using the FXa-based method.