title: Aggregability and disaggregability of erythrocytes in women suffering from ovarian cancer: evidence for an increased disaggregation threshold.
abstract: In order to further characterize the alterations of erythrocyte aggregation described in ovarian cancer, we measured it with laser backscattering in eleven women suffering from ovarian cancer (mean age: 44.7 +/- 3.6, extreme values: 28-61 yr) compared with thirteen matched control women. Blood rheology exhibited a wide variability in cancer patients, with some unusually high values of plasma viscosity and/or RBC aggregation in individual cases. The only significant differences were found for the RBC disaggregation threshold which was higher in patients than in controls (78.06 +/- 10.14 vs 52.6 +/- 3.15 s(-1), p < 0.05), while hematocrit was lower (34.45 +/- 1.42 vs 38.23 +/- 0.75, p < 0.05). A negative correlation between hematocrit and corrected blood viscosity on the whole sample of subjects (r = 0.454, p < 0.05) indicates that hematocrit is decreased in subjects prone to high viscosity, resulting in similar values of apparent blood viscosity in controls and patients. Thus, a lower disaggregability of RBCs is evidenced in women with ovarian cancer, as well as a tendency to blood hyperviscosity compensated by a reduction of hematocrit which suggests that there may be some degree of 'viscoregulation'.
authors.affiliation: Service de Gynécologie Obstétrique, Hôpital Arnaud de Villeneuve, France.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: El Bouhmadi
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Laffargue
authors.forename: J F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Brun
mesh_terms: D001809:Blood Viscosity; D003560:Cysts / Q000097:blood; D004903:Erythrocyte Aggregation; D004907:Erythrocyte Deformability; D005260:Female; D006400:Hematocrit; D018056:Hemorheology; D006801:Humans; D007889:Leiomyoma / Q000097:blood; D010048:Ovarian Cysts / Q000097:blood; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000097:blood* / Q000150:complications; D019851:Thrombophilia / Q000209:etiology; D014594:Uterine Neoplasms / Q000097:blood; D014623:Vaginal Diseases / Q000097:blood