There is virtually no utility to obtaining heritable thrombophilia testing in acute hospital setting. In fact, there are potential harms due to false-positive and false-negative results which in turn may lead to increasing anxiety in the patient and added cost due to repeat testing.
As many tests obtained as part of this workup are functional assays—eg, the protein S, C, or antithrombin activity, and activated protein C resistance (often used to screen for factor V Leiden)— they are easily impacted by the physiologic effects of acute thrombosis as well as all anticoagulants.1
More importantly, testing for inherited thrombophilia will not impact management in the acute setting, as decisions regarding duration of anticoagulation are often made later in the outpatient setting. The proper time to evaluate the patient for inherited thrombophilias (if indicated) is at least one week following discontinuation of anticoagulation (minimum 3 months from the time of the index event). 2
Testing for antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) may be considered in this setting though it should be noted that the lupus anticoagulant assay is impacted by nearly every anticoagulant, resulting in frequent false-positive results1, and therefore should be performed before initiation of these agents (or delayed until later if anticoagulation has already begun). A false-positive result has downstream implications as many patients with acute, uncomplicated venous thromboembolism (VTE) are discharged on a direct oral anticoagulant (DOAC), and antiphospholipid syndrome is currently considered a relative contraindication to the use of DOACs in VTE.
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References
1. Moll, S. “Thrombophilia: Clinical-practical aspects.” J Thromb Thrombolysis 2015;39:367-78. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25724822
2. Connors JM. “Thrombophilia Testing and Venous Thrombosis.” N Engl J Med 2017; 377:1177-1187. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1700365
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