RT Journal
A1 O’Riordan JM, Margey RJ, Blake G, O’Connell P
T1 TEst before you stop—reply
JF Archives of Surgery
JO Archives of Surgery
YR 2009
FD August 14
VO 144
IS 8
SP 787
OP 787
DO 10.1001/archsurg.2009.143
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archsurg.2009.143
AB 
We thank Drs Kumar and Roberts for their comments and interest in our article. Bedside platelet function testing could potentially provide the surgeon with a useful adjunct in treating patients taking antiplatelet agents in the perioperative period owing to variability between patients with regard to antiplatelet inhibition. However, platelet activation and aggregation involve multiple agonists and pathways, and the currently available laboratory-based techniques and bedside tests (eg, VerifyNow) used to assess platelet aggregation examine only 1 agonist and 1 pathway at a time. The criterion standard for assessing platelet aggregation remains light transmission aggregometry,1 which is time-consuming, expensive, and does not take place at the bedside. Therefore, basing clinical judgments on the outcomes of a single platelet aggregation assay, in its current format, could potentially lead to inappropriate decision-making. In the future, we hope to have a much more physiologic method of rapidly assessing platelet aggregation responses at the bedside.