At this meeting it had been decided that the subcommittee should only have a workshop and then join the Fibrinogen Subcommittee to discuss the study suggested by Dr. Francis on Soluble Fibrin in DIC patients. The subcommittee consists of more than 30 persons of whom seven persons attended the workshop, including all the co-chairs except for Dr. Muller-Berghaus.

The two issues that were taken into consideration were:
How should the subcommittee work, taking into consideration the suggestions by the ad hoc committee on subcommittees proposed by Dr. Meyer?
The study on soluble fibrin methods proposed by Dr. Francis.

I. It was found that many questions remain unsolved.
1. Definition ? no agreement was obtained in New York 1993 partly due to the fact that there was a misunderstanding on the voting procedure.
2. Diagnosis ? clinical criteria (scores, organ failures, etc.) are not yet set and tests to use including specificity and sensitivity of the tests are not yet set.
3. Furthermore, how to treat the patients is not solved since the above problems are not solved. This was underlined by a nice study reported on by Dr. Matsuda on patients diagnosed according to Japanese DIC definition in different groups (after surgery, medicine, newborns, etc.). He found that up to 70% of the patients with DIC in certain groups died.
II. It was agreed that the subcommittee was greatly in favor of a cooperative study with Dr. Francis. The patients suitable for such a study were discussed. We decided that patients with head trauma, multiple fracture trauma, and toxicosis should be included as we wanted to have as ?pure? patient material as possible. However it was also discussed and Dr. Francis later ? at the Fibrinogen Subcommittee meeting ? pointed out that it may be favorable to incorporate also patients with sepsis and other disorders involving DIC. The samples will probably be drawn only at admission. Protocols are being made by Dr. Francis and the finalized protocol will have to be agreed upon by the DIC subcommittee.

It was agreed upon that we should propose that the subcommittee should continue but those who had to work during the time to come had to be a small group, especially the group who attended the meeting, as otherwise the work would be difficult to oversee. It was also suggested that with regard to next year's meeting we should have a small workshop and the official meeting together with the Fibrinogen Subcommittee meeting, just as this year, if the SSC agrees to this.