Prevalence of Heparin-induced Thrombocytopenia in patients with cardiovascular disease admitted to Shahid Beheshti Hospital in Kashan in 1999

History and Considering the extensive use of heparin as an anticoagulant and because of the controversial reports on the prevalence of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) in different studies, this study was conducted in the cardiology ward of Shaheed Beheshti hospital in Kashan to determine the prevalence of HIT. The descriptive strategy of this study was carried out on 400 patients. Patients with a diagnosis of cardiovascular disorder were selected to consume heparin at an appropriate treatment dose and initially did not have thrombocytopenia and patients with such a condition were excluded from the study. Thereafter, cell count was conducted very two day. The study was performed on 400 patients with angina pectoris (65%) and myocardial infarction (35%) (67% out of them were male and the remainder (33%) was female). None of them showed signs of thrombocytopenia. It appears that in contrast to results of other studies with an incidence of 30% for thrombocytopenia, this complication is a rare one and it is not essential to conduct expensive and troublesome methods of platelet counts for related patients.