The value of quantitative patient preferences in regulatory benefit-risk assessment.

Quantitative patient preferences are a method to involve patients in regulatory benefit-risk assessment. Assuming preferences can be elicited, there might be multiple advantages to their use. Legal, methodological and procedural issues do however imply that preferences are currently at most part of the solution on how to best involve patients in regulatory decision making.

Complementary roles of platelets and coagulation in thrombus formation on plaques acutely ruptured by targeted ultrasound treatment: a novel intravital model.

Background: Atherothrombosis is a major cause of cardiovascular events. However, animal models to study this process are scarce.

Objectives: We describe the first murine model of acute thrombus formation upon plaque rupture to study atherothrombosis by intravital fluorescence microscopy.

Key role of platelet procoagulant activity in tissue factor-and collagen-dependent thrombus formation in arterioles and venules in vivo differential sensitivity to thrombin inhibition.

Objective: Blood coagulation and platelet activation are mutually dependent processes, but contribute differently to venous and arterial thrombosis. We investigated the interplay of these processes in vivo in a mouse model of arteriolar and venular thrombus formation.

Methods: Thrombus formation was studied by intravital (fluorescence) microscopy after topical application of FeCl3 on mouse mesenteric microvessels.

Both ADP and thrombin regulate arteriolar thrombus stabilization and embolization, but are not involved in initial hemostasis as induced by micropuncture.

Objective: Thrombosis and embolization are main causes of morbidity and mortality. Up to now, the relative importance of mediators involved is only partly known. It was the aim of this study to investigate the involvement of ADP and thrombin in subsequent phases of arteriolar hemostasis and thromboembolism in vivo.