ACTIVATED PROTEIN-C RESISTANCE - THE CURR ENT STATUS

The discovery of APC resistance and of the factor V Leiden mutation br ought a break-through in thrombosis research and has greatly improved our understanding of the pathogenesis of venous thrombosis. In particu lar, it became obvious that thrombotic disease is the result of multip le factors. However, many clinically relevant questions still remain u nanswered: for instance, the individual risk of thrombosis for a gene carrier is difficult to assess, since only some of the factors which m ay finally lead to thrombosis are presently recognized as such. The fu nctional tests which are in common use today have a number of drawback s and will soon be replaced by improved methods.