Plasma and platelet phospholipids in normal subjects and in patients with chronic arterial obliterations

Normally a substantially higher percentage of phosphoethanolamine is found in thrombocytes (24%) than in plasma (2.7%). The thrombocytes of patients with chronic arterial occlusions contain significantly less phosphoethanolamine (16.1%) than thrombocytes of normal subjects (24.0%; p less than 0.01). On the contrary, the plasma phosphoethanolamine levels of these patients are significantly elevated (4.8%) in comparison to normal subjects (2.7; p less than 0.05), possibly as the result of some 'leakage' of phosphoethanolamine from platelets. An anti-aggregating treatment did not change the phospholipid pattern of the plasma and of the thrombocytes.