Platelet activation in diabetic patients with asymptomatic atherosclerosis

We studied 27 non-insulin-dependent diabetics without apparent atherosclerosis (AS) to investigate whether abnormal platelet function is related to asymptomatic atherosclerosis in diabetes mellitus. The degree of AS was quantitatively evaluated by determining the intimal plus medial thickness (IMT) of the carotid artery wall with ultrasound high-resolution B-mode imaging. Based on our previous finding that the upper threshold of the IMT was 1.1 mm in healthy subjects, the patients were divided into the AS-positive group with the IMT > 1.1 mm, (n = 17) and the AS-negative group with the IMT < 1.1 mm (n = 10). Among five variables measured as the factors concerned with thrombogenesis, only plasma levels of beta-thromboglobulin (beta-TG) and platelet factor 4 (PF4) were significantly higher in the AS-positive group than in the AS-negative group. Chronic administration of pentoxifylline (300 mg/day) significantly reduced the abnormally high plasma levels of beta-TG and PF4 in 7 patients of the AS-positive group to normal levels, without lowering the normal plasma beta-TG and PF4 levels in the remaining 10 patients. Pentoxifylline treatment did not affect the plasma levels of the 3 other variables, von Willebrand factor, 6-keto prostaglandin F1 alpha and thromboxane B2. This study suggests that the progress of atherosclerosis in diabetes mellitus is associated with in vivo platelet activation and platelet activation does not occur in diabetics without carotid atherosclerosis. Pentoxifylline may impede the vicious cycle in which atherosclerosis is accelerated by platelet activation.