To study the demographic and clinical characteristics of patients with antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) with serious haemorrhagic complications of anticoagulant treatment in an attempt to establish risk factors for bleeding.
Patients with APS who were attending our lupus unit and who presented with severe bleeding while receiving oral anticoagulation were studied retrospectively. Severe bleeding was defined by the need for admission to hospital. Demographic data, clinical features, concomitant diseases and drugs, warfarin doses, duration of anticoagulation, and International Normalised Ratios (INR) at the time of bleeding were collected.
Fifteen patients were included in the study (12 with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) plus APS and 3 with primary APS). The median age was 41.7 (range 27-66) and the median duration of the disease was 12.9 years (range 3-22). Duration of anticoagulation was between 10 days and 17 years. The INR at the time of bleeding was under 3 in 4 patients, between 3 and 4 in 5 patients and above 4 in 6 patients. There were 4 episodes of subdural haematoma, 4 episodes of renal haematoma (two after renal biopsy), 2 episodes of ovarian haemorrhage, 2 episodes of rectal haemorrhage, 1 episode of menorrhagia, 1 episode of haemarthrosis, and 1 episode of spinal haematoma. Concomitant drugs were aspirin in 9 patients, antibiotics in 2 patients, and azathioprine in 3 patients. In 6 patients hypertension was present as a concomitant disease. There were no deaths due to bleeding. Anticoagulant treatment was restarted in all patients and 3 of them had a new episode of bleeding.
No relation was established between age, duration of oral anticoagulant treatment, and bleeding. Concomitant drugs, mainly aspirin, and high blood pressure were present at the time of bleeding in a large number of patients.