The discriminatory power of bleeding assessment tools in adult patients with a mild to moderate bleeding tendency.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Bleeding assessment tools (BATs) have been developed to quantify bleeding severity. Their ability to predict for the diagnosis of a bleeding disorder has not been thoroughly investigated. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the ability of the Vicenza BAT and the ISTH BAT to distinguish patients with an established bleeding disorder from those with bleeding of unknown cause (BUC). PATIENTS/METHODS: Three-hundred fifty-nine patients (228 with BUC, 64%) from the Vienna Bleeding Biobank were assessed in this study. RESULTS: The bleeding scores were similar in patients with an established diagnosis of a bleeding disorder compared to patients with BUC. Both BATs had a low sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of a bleeding disorder with areas under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves of 0.53 (95% confidence interval 0.47-0.60) for the Vicenza BAT and 0.52 (0.46-0.59) for the ISTH BAT. In terms of specific diagnoses, both scores were most accurate in diagnosing von Willebrand disease (VWD, areas under the ROC curve; Vicenza BAT 0.67 (0.45-0.90); ISTH BAT 0.70 (0.50-0.90)). A separate evaluation of different bleeding symptoms in patients who had undergone surgery and tooth extraction revealed that postpartum bleeding and bleeding from small wounds was predictive for diagnosing a MBD in multivariable analysis. CONCLUSIONS: The Vicenza- and the ISTH BAT have a low ability to distinguish patients with an established bleeding disorder from those with BUC.