TY  - JOUR
T1  - TEst before you stop—reply
AU  - O’Riordan JM, Margey RJ, Blake G, O’Connell P
Y1  - 2009/08/14
N1  - 10.1001/archsurg.2009.143
JO  - Archives of Surgery
SP  - 787
EP  - 787
VL  - 144
IS  - 8
N2  - 
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.

SN  - 0004-0010
M3  - doi: 10.1001/archsurg.2009.143
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archsurg.2009.143
ER  -