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

Since vascular complications in diabetes mellitus are attributed in part to blood platelets, our study tested the hypothesis that adhesion of platelets to collagen is enhanced in diabetic subjects. Platelet adhesion kinetics to type I collagen in the presence of plasma were evaluated by a new continuous-flow, micro-adhesion assay combined with resistive-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 might be abnormal. We did not observe any differences in adhesion kinetics 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 suggest that platelet adhesiveness to type I collagen is not enhanced in diabetic subjects and is unlikely to contribute to the development of vascular complications.