Effects of long-term high-altitude exposure on fibrinolytic system

Figures & data

Table 1. Demographics of participants.

	LA	Healthy HA	HAPC	p1	p2
N	103	100	23	/	/
Male, n (%)	71 (68.93%)	70 (70.00%)	18 (78.26%)	0.880	0.609
Age (range)	50.22 ± 11.16 (23–75)	50.04 ± 15.30 (24–79)	50.65 ± 10.96 (35–73)	0.857	0.923
Ethnicity	Han (100%)	Tibetan (96%)	Tibetan (100%)	/	/
Living altitude (m)	450–750	2500–4020	2500–4020	/	/
Blood type
A	49	32	9	/	/
B	16	30	3	/	/
AB	16	6	1	/	/
O	22	32	10	/	/
HGB (g/L)	140.76 ± 14.28	162.11 ± 16.67	217.35 ± 10.87	<0.0001	<0.0001
RBC (10^12/L)	4.51 ± 0.40	5.41 ± 0.48	6.99 ± 0.67	<0.001	<0.0001
HCT (%)	42.27 ± 7.38	49.12 ± 9.83	66.91 ± 3.31	<0.0001	<0.0001
PT (s)	12.86 ± 0.79	13.83 ± 1.14	16.31 ± 3.01	<0.0001	<0.0001
APTT (s)	32.61 ± 3.94	38.35 ± 12.64	56.61 ± 17.48	<0.0001	<0.0001
TT (s)	16.07 ± 1.59	17.59 ± 1.44	17.27 ± 1.36	<0.0001	0.337
Fbg (mg/dL)	2.29 ± 0.40	2.73 ± 0.96	2.63 ± 0.93	<0.0001	0.652

Notes: Data are presented as mean ± SD.

LA, low altitude healthy volunteers; Healthy HA, healthy high-altitude subjects; HAPC, high altitude polycythemia patients.

p1, the p-value between LA and HA participants; p2, the p-value between healthy HA volunteers and HAPC patients;

The gender of LA and healthy HA groups and that of healthy HA and HAPC groups were conducted by Chi-square test; Age, HGB, RBC, HCT, PT, APTT, TT, and Fbg of LA and healthy HA group, healthy HA and HAPC group were conducted by two-tailed unpaired Student's t test.

Figure 1. Fibrinolytic parameters in LA group and healthy HA group. The 25th–75th quartiles of the data are shown in box plots, with the center lines (—) and solid boxes (▪) representing the median values and mean values respectively. The whisker plots represent 95% CI (2.5%–97.5%). ∗p < 0.05; ∗∗p < 0.01, ∗∗∗ p < 0.001. The differences between LA group and healthy HA group were calculated using two-tailed unpaired Student’s t-test.

Table 2. Fibrinolytic parameters in healthy HA group and HAPC group.

	Fbg (mg/L)	AT-III (%)	DDi (mg/L)	PAI-1 (ng/ml)	tPA (IU/ml)	PLG (%)
Healthy HA group	2.75 ± 0.99	92.28 ± 14.23	0.59 ± 0.50	2.17 ± 1.21	0.14 ± 0.09	90.13 ± 12.33
HAPC group	2.63 ± 0.93	88.41 ± 12.15	0.58 ± 0.42	2.10 ± 0.77	0.16 ± 0.06	87.93 ± 10.26
p-value	0.623	0.110	1.005	0.391	0.093	0.062

Notes: Data are presented as mean ± SD.

The differences between healthy HA group and HAPC group were calculated using two-tailed unpaired Student’s t-test.

Supplementary Figure 1. No correlation between HGB and fibrinolytic parameters in HA group. Pearson correlation analysis was used. Correlation of HGB with (A) fibrinogen, (B) AT-III, (C) DDi, (D) PAI-1, (E) tPA, and (F) PLG in healthy HA group.