Thromb Haemostasis
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Antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL) are well known to be associated with arterial and venous thrombosis. In a series of 180 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), the prevalence of arterial thrombosis was obviously higher in the patients who had both anticardiolipin antibodies (aCL) and lupus anticoagulant (LA) (17/35, 48.6%, p<0.05) (Table 1) than in the other patients bearing aCL or LA alone or neither of them (2/145, 1.4%). Since a substantial fraction of the former group of patients with arterial thrombosis also had thrombocytopenia (12/17, 70.6%), there was a possibility that aCL and LA might have enhanced platelet activation and aggregation. ⋯ In addition to plasma samples, the purified IgG from aCL+ x LA+ plasma (aCL+ x LA+-IgG) also yielded apparent enhancement of platelet activation induced by ADP. Furthermore, platelet activation was generated by the mixture of aCL+ x LA--IgG and aCL- x LA+-IgG fractions prepared from individual patients, but not by each fraction alone. These results suggest that aCL and LA may cooperate to promote platelet activation, and may be involved, at least partially, in the pathogenesis of arterial thrombosis and thrombocytopenia in patients with SLE.