Disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) is a feared complication of many serious illnesses, including obstetric complications, sepsis, malignancies, and severe trauma. The most characteristic initiating event is formation (and often subsequent lysis) of microthrombi composed of platelets, fibrin, and coagulative factors. The consumption of coagulative factors leads to increased prothrombin time (PT) and paial thromboplastin time (PTT). The consumption of platelets leads to a decreased platelet count. A more specific confirmatory test is an increase in fibrin split products, such as "D-dimers." Characteristically, DIC clinically produces a mix of hemorrhagic and coagulative complications, and is difficult to treat because correcting the coagulative tendency tends to worsen the hemorrhage, and correcting the hemorrhagic tendency tends to worsen thrombotic complications. Ref: Arruda V.R. (2012). Chapter 116. Coagulation Disorders. In D.L. Longo, A.S. Fauci, D.L. Kasper, S.L. Hauser, J.L. Jameson, J. Loscalzo (Eds), Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, 18e.