Platelet-leukocyte activation and modulation of adhesion receptors in pediatric patients with congenital heart disease undergoing cardiopulmonary bypass.

Cardiopulmonary bypass has been shown in adults to activate platelets and leukocytes, lead to the formation of circulating platelet-leukocyte conjugates, and alter adhesive receptors on both cell types. Pediatric patients with congenital heart disease undergoing cardiopulmonary bypass, however, have not been extensively studied and may represent a group at particular clinical risk for bleeding and pulmonary dysfunction. We studied 13 patients with congenital heart disease undergoing operations necessitating bypass, 7 with cyanotic and 6 with noncyanotic congenital heart disease.

Aspirin does not inhibit adenosine diphosphate-induced platelet alpha-granule release.

The involvement of metabolites of arachidonic acid in platelet-dense granule secretion and secondary platelet-platelet interactions is well characterized. However, their role in heterotypic interactions dependent on alpha-granule secretion is less well understood. Using platelet-surface expression of P-selectin as a marker of alpha-granule secretion, we have shown that: (1) aspirin treatment of platelets at doses that block dense granule secretion does not inhibit alpha-granule secretion to adenosine diphosphate (ADP); (2) synergism between epinephrine and ADP in the induction of P-selectin expression is similarly unaffected by aspirin; and (3) the ability of P-selectin to mediate adhesion of activated platelets to monocytes and polymorphonuclear lymphocytes in whole blood is also unchanged by aspirin treatment.