9 - Congenital and Acquired Disorders of Platelet Function and Number

Abstract

Whereas thrombocytopenia is a common and recognized cause of abnormal primary hemostasis, qualitative defects and platelets exist. These disorders may be acquired defects from aspirin or other antiplatelet drugs or from congenital defects. The latter are multiple, rare, and esoteric. Yet understanding these disorders has revealed substantial information about platelet metabolism and physiology that has been translated into therapeutically reproducing these defects when weakened platelets are clinically desirable, as in patients with cardiac and/or central nervous system ischemia.