PLATELET-ADHESION TO COLLAGEN UNDER NOW CONDITIONS IN DIABETES-MELLITUS

Since vascular complications in diabetes mellitus are attributed in pa rt to blood platelets, our study tested the hypothesis that adhesion o f platelets to collagen is enhanced in diabetic subjects. Platelet adh esion kinetics to type I collagen in the presence of plasma were evalu ated by a new continuous-flow, micro-adhesion assay combined with resi stive-particle counting to detect the loss of single platelets between 0.3 and 2.3 sec. Adhesion was also studied in a magnesium-containing Krebs-Ringer buffer to help assess whether the platelets themselves mi ght be abnormal. We did not observe any differences in adhesion kineti cs to collagen between the insulin-dependent (type I), the non-insulin dependent (type II) diabetics and the control subjects for platelets suspended in plasma or in washed platelets (p>0.05). These findings su ggest that platelet adhesiveness to type I collagen is not enhanced in diabetic subjects and is unlikely to contribute to the development of vascular complications.