[Assessment of platelet function in man]

Assessment of platelet function was primarily designed to explore patients with hemostatic disorders, but is becoming important for the monitoring of anti platelet agents, mostly aspirin and clopidogrel. Beside platelet counting, morphological analysis and bleeding time, a number of dedicated platelet function instruments are now available, generally allowing a rapid evaluation of platelet function in whole blood. The other tests including aggregometry and ELISA measurement of activation markers are generally restricted to specialized laboratories. Although aggregometry is still considered as the "gold standard", the recently developed flow cytometric-based platelet function analysis provides a wide choice of tests that assess the number of surface receptors, the measure of secretion and aggregation, the quantification of microparticules and leukocyte-platelet aggregates. It also allows the measure of the function of the ADP receptor P2Y12 by the phosphorylation level of the VASP protein, method currently under evaluation to monitor the platelet response to clopidogrel treatment.