Description

Fibrinogen

A fibrinogen test, or Factor 1 Activity test, checks how much of the protein called fibrinogen is in your blood. Your liver makes fibrinogen, which helps your blood clot.  

If you don’t have enough fibrinogen, it might be hard for your blood to clot.  If your fibrinogen levels are higher or lower than usual, it could indicate problems with how your blood clots, a fibrinogen deficiency, or uneven fibrinolysis, which is the process by which your body breaks up blood clots that shouldn’t form.

A fibrinogen test can help if you have signs like: 

• Bleeding in your digestive system.
• You have blood in your pee or poop.
• Spitting blood.
• Too many bruises.
• Frequent nosebleeds.
• Ruptured spleen.

* Trouble stopping bleeding or excessive bleeding when cut.

* When you’ve received unusual or abnormal results from a blood clot test, such as a Prothombin time test (PT) or Activated Partial Thromboplastin Time (APTT). 

• Signs of problems with how the blood clots.
• Signs of disseminated intravascular coagulation, a serious problem with blood clotting.
• Signs of genetic diseases that make it hard for the blood to clot.
• Recurrent pregnancy loss.

There are a few different kinds of fibrinogen shortages:

• Afibrinogenemia, which is when your blood doesn’t have any fibrinogen. This disorder is very rare; only one person in every million has it.

Hypofibrinogenemia is when your fibrinogen levels are too low. Hypofibrinogenemia is more common than afibrinogenemia. Experts don’t know exactly how many people have it, but they do know that it’s more common.

• Dysfibrinogenemia, which is when your fibrinogen levels are normal but fibrinogen doesn’t work right. Some people with dysfibrinogenemia don’t have any symptoms, so it’s hard to know how many people have it. However, it’s more common than afibrinogenemia.