Study of Relationship between Heparin and Platelets in Hemodialysis Patients

Platelets are considered one of the most important components of blood that contribute to the coagulation process, and they also play an important role in the blood clotting process. Platelets may be exposed to some types of anticoagulant drugs, such as heparin, which increases the risk of thrombocytopenia, especially in dialysis patients who receive heparin periodically in the extracorporeal circuit in the dialysis unit; thrombocytopenia may develop due to receiving heparin in every dialysis session, which has been confirmed for patients in previous research. This research, aims to find the relationship between heparin and platelets among dialysis patients.

Some parameters were carried on for hemodialysis patients of (Al-Jamil - Raqdalin - Zuwara) hemodialysis centers to support the study of the relationship between them, (CBC, PT, PTT, CT, and BT), also a questionnaire has been collected from the patients for further information.

The results showed that there is an inverse relationship between the dose of heparin and platelets at α (0.5), meaning that the higher the dose of heparin, the greater the thrombocytopenia. We also found that there is an inverse relationship between the duration of dialysis and platelets, meaning that the longer the duration of dialysis, the lower the platelet count. The results showed also the presence of clots in the dialysis machine in varying proportions.

We can conclude that there are no effects on the types of treatment doses on the platelets. Also, heparin dose and Platelets count have an inverse significant relationship. We can conclude also that there are no significant differences between the average platelets due to the types of heparin at the level of significance.