Absence of hyperfibrinolysis may explain lack of efficacy of tranexamic acid in hypoproliferative thrombocytopenia

The American Trial Using Tranexamic Acid (TXA) in Thrombocytopenia (A-TREAT, NCT02578901) demonstrated no superiority of TXA over placebo in preventing World Health Organization (WHO) grade 2 or higher bleeding in patients with severe thrombocytopenia requiring supportive platelet transfusion following myeloablative therapy for hematologic disorders. In this ancillary study, we sought to determine whether this clinical outcome could be explained on the basis of correlative assays of fibrinolysis. Plasma was collected from A-TREAT participants (n = 115) before the initiation of study drug (baseline) and when TXA was at steady-state trough concentration (follow-up). Global fibrinolysis was measured by 3 assays: euglobulin clot lysis time (ECLT), plasmin generation (PG), and tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA)–challenged clot lysis time (tPA-CLT). TXA was quantified in follow-up samples by tandem mass spectrometry. Baseline samples did not demonstrate fibrinolytic activation by ECLT or tPA-CLT. Furthermore, neither ECLT nor levels of plasminogen activator inhibitor-1, tPA, plasminogen, alpha2-antiplasmin, or plasmin-antiplasmin complexes were associated with a greater risk of WHO grade 2+ bleeding. TXA trough concentrations were highly variable (range, 0.7-10 μg/mL) and did not correlate with bleeding severity, despite the fact that plasma TXA levels correlated strongly with pharmacodynamic assessments by PG (Spearman r, −0.78) and tPA-CLT (r, 0.74). We conclude that (1) no evidence of fibrinolytic activation was observed in these patients with thrombocytopenia, (2) trough TXA concentrations varied significantly between patients receiving the same dosing schedule, and (3) tPA-CLT and PG correlated well with TXA drug levels.