Platelets And Thrombosis

This book reviews current science and applications in fields including thrombosis and hemostasis, signal transduction, and non-thrombotic conditions such as inflammation, allergy and tumor metastasis. It is a detailed, up-to-date, highly referenced text for clinical scientists and physicians, including recent developments in this rapidly expanding field. More than a scientific resource, this is also an authoritative reference and guide to the diagnosis.

Platelets, Second Edition is the definitive current source of state-of-the-art knowledge about platelets and covers the entire field of platelet biology, pathophysiology, and clinical medicine. Recently there has been a rapid expansion of knowledge in both basic biology and the clinical approach to platelet-related diseases including thrombosis and hemorrhage. Novel platelet function tests, drugs, blood bank storage methods, and gene therapies have been incorporated into patient care or are in development. This book draws all this information into a single, comprehensive and authoritative resource. First edition won Best Book in Medical Science Award from the Association of American Publishers Contains fourteen new chapters on topics such as platelet genomics and proteomics, inhibition of platelet function by the endothelium, clinical tests of platelet function, real time in vivo imaging of platelets, and inherited thrombocytopenias A comprehensive full color reference comprising over 70 chapters, 1400 pages, and 16,000 references

Platelets are essential mediators of the physiologic process of hemostasis and pathologic thrombosis. While platelets do not interact with vascular walls under normal conditions, vascular injury or inflammation result in a coordinated series of events including platelet adhesion, aggregation, and promotion of coagulation. In this review, we describe the primary mechanisms involved in these responses in various vascular beds of both macro- and microvessels, and outline key unresolved aspects of these important interactions.

Platelets play a key role in thrombosis and haemostasis. However recent evidence clearly demonstrates that the functional role of platelets extends to many other processes in the body. With an internationally recognised list of contributing authors, The Non-Thrombotic Role of Platelets in Health and Disease, is a unique and definitive source of state-of-the-art knowledge about the additional role of platelets outside thrombosis and haemostasis. The intended audience for The Non-Thrombotic Role of Platelets in Health and Disease includes platelet biologists, microbiologists, immunologists, haematologists, oncologists, respiratory physicians, cardiologists, neurobiologists, tissue engineers, as well as students and fellows in these areas.

The special contribution of the present volume is that of gathering a large amount of up-to-date information on the formidable problem of the methods used for testing platelet function in thrombosis. The methods used for studying platelet behavior in hemorrhagic disorders due to abnormal platelet function are undoubtedly characterized by difficulties in interpretation and by poor reproducibility. However, all will agree that the problem of the significance and importance of platelet function tests in thrombosis and atherosclerosis is an absolute "morass," and recent and past papers on the measurement of platelet adhesiveness in myocardial infarction could well appear in a special issue of the new "Journal of Irreproducible Results". This volume includes both general papers on the role of platelets in thrombosis by G. V. R. Born, Duncan P. Thomas, and J. R.