A Prospective comparison of new Japanese criteria for disseminated intravascular coagulation: new Japanese criteria versus ISTH criteria.

In Japan, early diagnosis and early treatment of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) based on the old Japanese criteria have greatly improved the outcomes of DIC patients with hematopoietic malignancy. However, the prognoses of critically ill patients with DIC have remained poor. To overcome this situation, new Japanese DIC criteria for critically ill patients were established in 2002. The new Japanese DIC criteria adopted a concept of coagulopathy associated with systemic inflammatory response syndrome. In the present study, we prospectively investigated the relationships between the new criteria and organ failure, prognosis, and other sets of DIC criteria. This study included 74 patients whose platelet counts were below 150 x 10(9)/L. Daily DIC scores and sequential organ failure assessment scores were recorded from days 0 to 4 once the patient was included in the study. The new Japanese DIC criteria diagnosed DIC earlier than both the non-overt DIC and the old Japanese criteria did (P = .0005). The new Japanese criteria diagnosed more DIC patients prior to the establishment of multiple organ failure than the other sets (P = .023). The new Japanese criteria tended also to predict prognoses more efficiently than the other two sets. In conclusion, the diagnostic sensitivity of the new Japanese criteria was as high as that of the non-overt DIC criteria. Furthermore, the new Japanese criteria provided the earliest detection and most accurate outcome prediction of DIC among the DIC criteria sets.