Plasma β-Thromboglobulin and Platelet Factor 4 in Patients with Chronic Renal Failure and Effect of Hemodialysis

Abstract

Significantly increased levels of plasma β-thromboglobulin (β-TG) (76.8±25.5 ng/ml, p<0.01) were observed in 24 patients with chronic renal failure (blood urea nitrogen (BUN) > 20 mg/100 ml), as compared with normal subjects (13.2±5.6 ng/ml). The increase in β-TG was highly correlated with BUN (r=0.651, p<0.01), creatinine (r=0.778, p<0.01) and creatinine clearance (t=-0.723, p<0.01). Plasma platelet factor 4 (PF4) (normal 5.0±2.0 ng/ml) also increased significantly to 8.5±3.4 ng/ml (p<0.01). However, statistical correlation between β-TG and PF4 was not found in these patients. The reason is thought to be due to differences in molecular weight (PF48,000 MW; β-TG 36,000 MW) and half-life time (PF4 30 min; β-TG 100 min), and due to the difficulty in calculating statistically the correlation becasue of the narrow distribution of PF4 levels. The high levels of β-TG (89.4±3.4 ng/ml) showed a further increase (109.4±5.8 ng/100 ml, p<0.01) after dialysis. This is thought to be due to hemoconcentration, because other blood factors such as RBC, WBC, platelets, fibrinogen, etc were elevated by about 20% during hemodialysis and because no adhesion of platelets to the cellulose membrane did occur. The increase in PF4 levels at 15 min (55.2±19.6 ng/ml, p<0.01) and 1 hr (23.7±8.4 ng/ml, p<0.01) of hemodialysis from the level before it (7.7± 1.3 ng/ml) is thought to be caused the effect of heparin infusion. The change in PF4 was not accompanied by the change in β-TG. During hemodialysis the decrease of other platelet functions such as adhesiveness, aggregation induced by ADP, collagen and PF3 remained unchanged. © 1981, Tohoku University Medical Press. All rights reserved.