Abstract
In recent years, it has been clearly demonstrated that platelets play in coronary heart disease (CHD) a more prominent role than formerly suspected. Decreasing their activity by aspirin administration in unstable angina has resulted in a decrease of coronary events by as much as 50%, and total mortality by 71% (1), a success apparently not duplicated so far by any other substance including hypolipemic drugs. This result can be explained by the fact that unstable angina seems to be an intermittent thrombotic event as shown recently by angioscopy (2). This last technique has also demonstrated that stenotic lesions usually attributed to atherosclerotic plaque at angiography were frequently due to a fresh thrombus (3). Finally, in acute myocardial infarction, more than 90% of coronary arteries become patent after thrombolysis (4) clearly demonstrating that myocardial infarction is really due to thrombosis. Since in addition, platelet reactivity has been shown to be significantly increased in prevalent cases of myocardial infarction (5) confirmed in 2500 subjects from the Caerphilly study (to be published elsewhere), all those results suggest a primary role for platelet reactivity in CHD.
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References
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© 1989 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Renaud, S. (1989). Alpha-Linolenic Acid, Platelet Lipids and Function. In: Galli, C., Simopoulos, A.P. (eds) Dietary ω3 and ω6 Fatty Acids. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2043-3_24
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2043-3_24
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