Plasma fibrin sealant exclusively based on exogenous calcium and physiological thrombin: fitting and understanding of an old approach

Abstract

Background: Fibrin sealant (also often referred to as fibrin glue) is probably one of the most complex human plasma derivatives both in terms of composition and clinical applications. Fibrin materials serve as temporal scaffolds for cells involved in wound healing and are often used as matrix for cell or drug delivery, especially in research. In clinical tests, as coagulation trigger agent, a phosholipid, i.e., cephalin with calcium chloride is typically used for the intrinsic pathway, and thromboplastin with calcium choride is used for the extrinsic pathway. The coagulation also occurs by mixing citrated plasma with only calcium chloride, though the clotting time is much longer.

Objective: The objective of this study was to use a statistical method to determine calcium concentration leading to the shortest mean time to obtain an exclusively exogenous calcium fibrin sealant based on homologous plasma.

Material and methods: For clotting time measures, coagulometer START4 was used. All clotting time results were analyzed by the Student test. Our experimental method excluded any other chemical or exogenous enzyme addition.

Results: Clotting times obtained in minutes were 22±3.41, 13±1.40, 19±5.85, 35±26.21 and >120 respectively for 20 mM, 40mM, 60 mM, 80 mM and 100 mM calcium chloride final concentrations in plasma solutions.

Conclusion: Calcium chloride concentration which gave the best clotting time, otherwise the shortest clotting time, following our proposed method was 40 mM. This simple practice would allow to completely exclude chemicals or enzymes addition except indispensable chloride calcium to obtain homologous plasma fibrin sealants.

Keywords: Plasma; Fibrin sealant; clotting time; Calcium