Novel insights into antithrombin deficiency enabled by mass spectrometry-based precision diagnostics

BACKGROUND: Although P5 (preventive, personalized, predictive, participatory, psychocognitive) medicine and patient-focused healthcare are gaining ground in various healthcare areas, the diagnosis of antithrombin deficiency (ATD) is still based on crude diagnostic tests, clustering patients into clinically heterogeneous subgroups whereby relevant thrombophilia phenotypes may go unnoticed. Clinical pathways and the majority of evidence are based on these tests; therefore, generic treatment is still the norm.

OBJECTIVES: To unravel the heterogeneity of ATD, a mass spectrometry (liquid chromatography coupled to multiple-reaction-monitoring mass spectrometry [LC-MRM-MS])-based test for antithrombin was developed allowing molecular characterization of the antithrombin proteoforms in patient plasma. This study provides the first insight into the tests' clinical performance.

METHODS: Plasma from 91 unrelated ATD patients and 41 patients with a congenital disorder of glycosylation affecting antithrombin glycosylation were characterized functionally, genetically, and analyzed by LC-MRM-MS. An established data analysis strategy was applied for quantitation and molecular characterization of antithrombin proteoforms.

RESULTS: The test recognized patients with a quantitative defect, discriminated between type I and type II ATD, and identified variant proteoforms. Overall, the diagnostic sensitivity for ATD was 100% for LC-MRM-MS compared with 81.1% by the functional test. Type II ATD, a subtype prone to misdiagnosis, revealed an even larger difference of 100% identification by LC-MRM-MS vs 56.8% by functional test.

CONCLUSION: The qualitative and quantitative mass spectrometry-based AT-test can serve as a platform for investigating the molecular basis of the clinical heterogeneity of ATD. This "precision diagnostics" approach for ATD can lower diagnostic uncertainty and modernize the ATD diagnostic and clinical pathways.