A female client with liver cirrhosis and chronic anemia is hospitalized for a deep venous thrombosis. The client is receiving a heparin infusion and suddenly develops epistaxis. Which laboratory value would indicate that the heparin infusion needs to be turned off?

a. Hematocrit of 30% (0.30)
b. Partial thromboplastin time of 10 seconds
c. Platelet count of 80,000/mm3 (80 x 10^9/L)
d. Prothrombin time of 11 seconds

b. Partial thromboplastin time of 10 seconds

Explanation:

When a blood clot is formed within a vein then it is known as venous thrombosis and heparin infusion is usually recommended in such a case as heparin helps in preventing blood clot.Since heparin is an anticoagulant it can lead to epistaxis which is a term used for bleeding from nasal areas.Although epistaxis itself indicates that heparin infusion should not be continued but the laboratory value that acts as an indicator of stopping the infusion is Partial thromboplastin time of 10 seconds.Partial thromboplastin time is a labortory test which is taken to assess the time it takes for the blood clot to form, if this is of 10 seconds, then this indicates that heparin infusion should be turned off.

The correct answer is c.