Postirradiation haemorrhagic syndrome

One of the relevant symptoms of damage due to irradiation are the manifestations of haemorrhagic diathesis. The extravascular effusion of the blood in the course of the course of the irradiation disease may sometimes also be the cause of death of the irradiated individual, it may complicate the course of the arisen disease and sometimes even make any necessary therapeutical help impossible. The postirradiation disorder of haemocoagulation and haemostasis is a process very complicated both in its origin and in its course. Many experimental studies have been devoted to the study of the mechanism of origin of this disorder, of its course and of the possibilities of its therapy and actually we already have some clinical results. For a wider information and for the utilization of the up-to-date findings in practise, we hold it reasonable to summarize, in a certain time period, the information, though of a restricted problem, in order to facilitate an orientation in the contributions research has made up to now and to enable the selection of the adequate direction of the future experimental studies. This was the reason for the compilation of this monograph in which a summary of the up-to-date experience published in the literature and the results of our many-year standing experimental work is presented in the first opening chapter. In the second chapter, the mechanisms of blood clotting in man and the most often used laboratory animals in experiments, i.e. the dog, rabbit, rat and guinea pig, are compared. By a comparison of the platelet counts, of the time of their survival and the modes of reaction to the inductors of aggregation, some differences have been demonstrated between human thrombocytes and those of laboratory animals, which may be partly conditioned by some species specific composition of the glycoproteins of the platelet membrane. Further on, the difficulties in the determination of the levels of the individual coagulation factors are referred to and their values established in man are compared with those found in the examined laboratory animals in which decreased levels of factor VII and markedly elevated levels of factors V and VIII have been demonstrated. Next, the physiological inhibitors of blood clotting in man are compared with similar substances found in the blood of laboratory animals. Some differences in the structure and in the function of these substances slowing down the blood coagulation are stressed.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)