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Lipid composition of platelets in patients with uremia
A Vecino1, J Navarro-Antolín, J Teruel
1Department of Hematology, Hospital Ramón y Cajal, Madrid, Spain.
Aims:
The lipid composition of platelets and the function of these cells in patients with uremia were studied.
Methods:
Fourteen patients and 14 normal volunteers were studied. Platelet lipids including phospholipids and cholesterol, as well as the platelet aggregation response to agonists, were studied.
Results:
The amount of platelet phospholipids was decreased in patients compared to controls (338.0 +/- 79 vs. 511.6 +/- 125 nmol/10(9) cells; p < 0.001), while the percentage of the five main specimens of these compounds was normal. The content of platelet cholesterol in patients (97.8 +/- 17.0 microg/10(9) cells) was similar to that in controls (91.7 +/- 26.0 microg/10(9) cells). Consequently, the cholesterol:phospholipid ratio in uremic platelets was increased (0.75 +/- 0.1 vs. 0.46 +/- 0.1; p < 0.01). Although this feature is associated with hyperreactive platelets, the aggregation tests were defective for adenosin diphosphate (p < 0.01), arachidonic acid (p < 0.01), epinephrine (p < 0.01) and collagen (p < 0.001). This behavior is probably due to the multifactorial platelet defect described in uremia.