Use of recombinant activated factor VII

Dagmara Reingardienė, Robertas Lažauskas¹

Department of Intensive Care, ¹Department of Physiology, Kaunas University of Medicine, Lithuania

Key words: hemorrhage; hemostasis; bleeding; hemophilia; recombinant activated factor VII.

Summary. Recombinant activated factor VII (rFVIIa) has been used in the treatment of various congenital and acquired hemostatic disorders for more than 10 years. Hemostasis is initiated by the FVIIa bound to tissue factor (TF), which constitutes only approximately 1% of total amount of the FVII protein existing in the blood. rFVII becomes activated only after the binding to the TF, released at the site of tissue injury. The efficiency of rFVIIa in the treatment of such life-threatening hemorrhagic states like hemophilia reaches up to 76–84%. rFVIIa is successfully used in the treatment of congenital deficiency of factor VII. It normalizes prothrombin time in the patients with the liver diseases and in cases of overdose of indirect anticoagulants. It is also useful for patients suffering from thrombocytopenia, thrombocyte function disorders, hemophilia A and B with development of inhibitors. rFVIIa allows overcoming uncontrollable hemorrhages, etc. It is supposed that rFVIIa is becoming a universal hemostatic drug.

Correspondence to D. Reingardienė, Department of Intensive Care, Kaunas University of Medicine, Eivenių 2, 50009 Kaunas, Lithuania. E-mail: mindaugas.janciukas@gmail.com

Received 20 October 2008, accepted 11 February 2009