The place of viscoelastic testing in clinical practice

Hellmut Hartert was the first person to exploit the viscoelastic properties of clotting blood to measure blood coagulation in 1948. Since then, the technology has improved, allowing these analyses to be performed as point-of-care tests with immediately-available results. The addition of several activators and inhibitors to the original assay creates a panel of tests able to quantify the different aspects of blood clotting that can rival conventional laboratory assays. However, although much progress has been made, the standardization and validation of these tests still need improvement. Viscoelastic analyses of blood coagulation are mainly used to guide haemostatic therapy in bleeding patients and have proven superior to standard clotting tests in some circumstances. There is potential to extend their use to other areas, such as drug monitoring, and diagnosis and management of congenital bleeding disorders. The forthcoming cartridge-based assays are expected to improve the reliability and usability of viscoelastic assays of blood coagulation but high quality clinical trials remain urgently needed to determine their exact place, benefit and cost effectiveness.