Hemostasia consists of a balance between procoagulants and anticoagulants involving vessels, platelets, clot and fibrinolysis proteins and natural anticoagulants. All the components are interrelated constituting the coagulation, anticoagulation and fibrinolysis systems. Many genetic or acquired factors may contribute to break this balance leading to hypo or hypercoagulability states. In coronarian diseases, such as angina pectoris and acute myocardial infarction, an exacerbated activation of the platelets and clot proteins occurs, favouring thrombus formation. In order to restore hemostasia, the fibrinolytic system intervention occurs, what promotes the clot lysis removing obstruction from the vessels. In this work, the clot and fibrinolysis systems and protein C, a natural anticoagulant, were evaluated. Twenty patients with coronarian diseases including angina pectoris (n = 8) and acute myocardial infarction (n = 12) were studied, besides patients showing potential risk for developing cardiovascular disease (n = 17). The group of infarcted patients was matched to healthy subjects under the clinical and laboratory points of view (control group, n = 12). The results for angina and infarction groups revealed a significant difference in fibrinogen plasma levels compared to control group. Activated protein C plasma levels also showed a significant difference between the risk and infarction groups. The other hemostatic evaluated parameters did not differ significantly between the studied groups. However, a tendency to hypercoagulability was observed in the patient groups compared to the control group.
Coronarian diseases; Coagulation cascade; Natural anticoagulation; Fibrinolysis; Thrombotic state
