Correction of the platelet abnormality in von Willebrand's disease by cryoprecipitate

Abstract

In eleven patients with von Willebrand's disease, retention of platelets in glass bead filters was decreased; this abnormality was corrected by prior mixing of their heparinized blood with normal cryoprecipitate. The factor which increased platelet retention was also present in cryoprecipitate prepared from the plasma of a patient with hemophilia but was lacking in the cryoprecipitate of patients with von Willebrand's disease. In the more severely affected patients the amount of cryoprecipitate required to correct the defect in retention was larger than in the patients with a lesser hemostatic defect. This crude type of biologic assay suggests that the degree of clinical bleeding in von Willebrand's disease may be related to the relative deficiency of a plasma factor necessary for the formation of a hemostatic platelet plug.