Women and bleeding disorders: diagnostic challenges

Women with bleeding disorders suffer from multiple bleeding symptoms, including easy bruising, epistaxis, bleeding from minor wounds and the oral cavity, and bleeding after dental work or surgery. However, women with bleeding disorders especially suffer from gynecologic and obstetrical bleeding. These symptoms often are not recognized as abnormal, and many women are left undiagnosed and without access to appropriate medical care. Additional challenges to diagnosing women with bleeding disorders include lack of access to appropriate laboratory testing and issues around disease classification and nomenclature. Efforts have been undertaken to address these challenges, including the development and validation of bleeding assessment tools and strategies to clarify diagnostic thresholds and algorithms for von Willebrand disease (VWD) and platelet function disorders. Efforts to improve communication with the nomenclature used for hemophilia carriers are also underway.