Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation - Volume 35, issue 1-2

Authors: Startseva, Julia | Sulimova, Natali | Cherkassov, Vladimir | Kon, Kat | Lysov, Andrej

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: We have made the diagnosis of transcapillary flow disturbances in the lungs of lung cancer patients with the available noninvasive method of videobiomicroscopy of eye conjunctiva with further morphometric processing of obtained data using PC. 77 patients with lung cancer have been studied. Using videobiomicroscopy we calculated the size of venous capillary sacculations, the square of capillary glomerules (Sg ), the amplitude (A), the ‘length’ of the twisted part of a microvessel (Lt ), the amplitude-length coefficient (Ca ), the frequency-length coefficient (Cf ), the size of venous capillaries (V), intravascular conglomeration of aggregated erythrocytes (conglomerate), RBC aggregation coefficient (Cs …) and the degree of sludge. To evaluate the data obtained, a comparative morphologic investigation of histologic samples taken from the intact areas of the lung parenchyma has been carried out. We diagnosed moderate or determined disturbances in the capillary flow that were confirmed by microscopy. Show more

Keywords: Lung cancer, capillary flow, videobiomicroscopy

Citation: Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation, vol. 35, no. 1-2, pp. 305-306, 2006

Authors: Mantskava, Maia | Momtselidze, Nana | Pargalava, Nugzar | Mchedlishvili, George

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The aim of the present study was to evaluate blood rheological disorders, in particular RBC enhanced aggregation, and compare changes in these parameters in patients with type 1 and 2 diabetes mellitus. For evaluation of RBC aggregability in the present study we applied the “Georgian technique”, which was developed and applied for several years in our laboratory. Its advantage is that it is a direct and quantitative method. In all the investigated patients, diabetes mellitus was complicated with the foot gangrenes. The patients were divided into two groups: (a) with type 1 and (b) with type 2 diabetes mellitus. We …matched the RBC aggregability indices in both groups of diabetic patients and compared the obtained results with those in the healthy control group. We found that rheological disorders were considerably pronounced. The RBC aggregability index increased by 62 percent (p<0.001) in type 1 and by 57 percent (p<0.001) in type 2 diabetic patients as compared to the control group. However, there were insignificant differences of the RBC aggregability changes between the two groups of patients. Therefore we conclude that blood rheological disorders are similar in both types of diabetes mellitus. The disturbed blood fluidity related to the increased RBC aggregability in the microcirculation promotes, in particular, the development of legs gangrene in both types of diabetes mellitus. Show more

Keywords: Blood rheological disorders, the erythrocyte aggregability index, 1st types and 2nd types of diabetes mellitus

Citation: Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation, vol. 35, no. 1-2, pp. 307-310, 2006

Authors: Pérez, S.M. | Riquelme, B. | Acosta, I. | Valverde, J. | Milani, A.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: β-thalassaemia is a hereditary hemolytic disease, in which each clinic phenotype encompasses a heterogenic group of genetic alterations resulting in β-globin chain synthesis decrease or absence in red blood cells. Studies on β-thalassaemia carriers suggest the existence of decreased red cell deformability. The erythrocyte deformability in the blood stream is a well-known fact regarding blood circulation efficiency. Red blood cells may be considered to be viscoelastic and their behavior may be described according to complex viscoelastic parameters when they undergo oscillatory stresses. This dynamic behavior is physiologically important due to the in vivo pulsatile blood flow. The aim of the …present work was to evaluate complex erythrocyte viscoelastic parameters in patients suffering from heterozygous β-thalassaemia in comparison with healthy individuals. Our results reveal that even though thalassaemia erythrocytes show a decreased deformability in the stationary state, in a dynamic state, hemorheological alterations are only evident at low oscillatory frequencies, i.e., at lower frequencies in contrast with the normal heart rate (60 cycles/min = 1 Hz), producing no significant alterations at increased heart rate. Show more

Keywords: β-thalassaemia minor, erythrocyte rheology, dynamic viscoelasticity

Citation: Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation, vol. 35, no. 1-2, pp. 311-316, 2006

Authors: Ahmadizad, Sajad | El-Sayed, Mahmoud S. | MacLaren, Donald P.M.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: To examine the effects of drinking an amount of water equal to weight loss on the responses of blood rheological variables, eleven healthy male subjects performed three resistance exercise trials. The aim of the first session was to determine the amount of weight loss following a resistance exercise trial at 80% of one repletion maximum (1RM). In the second and third sessions subjects performed the same resistance exercise protocol without and with drinking an amount of water equal to that recorded for body weight loss. Three venous blood samples were taken before exercise, immediately after exercise, and at the end …of 30-min recovery and were analysed for haematocrit (Hct), haemoglobin (Hb), blood cells count and the main determinant of blood rheology. Haematocrit, plasma viscosity, fibrinogen, albumin, and total protein were significantly increased in response to resistance exercise and returned to pre-exercise level following 30-min of recovery. The changes in blood rheological variables in response to resistance exercise occurred similarly in both control and water trials with no significant difference being observed between trials. Plasma volume loss through sweating and respiratory tract during resistance exercise could have contributed to the decrease in plasma volume, though, this contribution was negligible. Therefore, it is concluded that the increases in blood rheological variables in response to resistance exercise are mainly due to plasma shifts from intravascular space to extravascular spaces rather than plasma volume loss through sweating and respiratory tract. Show more

Keywords: Water intake, resistance exercise, fibrinogen, plasma viscosity, haemoconcentration

Citation: Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation, vol. 35, no. 1-2, pp. 317-327, 2006

Authors: Varlet-Marie, Emmanuelle | Mercier, Jacques | Brun, Jean-Frédéric

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: There is a lack of consensus about the biological diagnosis of the overtraining syndrome (OTS). Recently, efforts have been made to standardize its clinical diagnosis (e.g., standardized questionnaires like that of the French consensus group on overtraining of the Société Française de Médecine du Sport–SFMS). We previously reported that the early signs of overtraining (= “overreaching”) in elite sportsmen are associated with a hemorheologic pattern (raised hematocrit and plasma viscosity ηp ) that suggests some degree of reversal of the “autohemodilution” which characterizes fitness, and that the feeling of heavy legs in overtrained athletes is related to higher ηp …and higher red cell aggregation. We thus investigated on a sample of 48 athletes (age 24±1 yr), referred for possible diagnosis of overtraining to what extent plasma viscosity is a predictor of OTS. From those 48 athletes 10 had a value of ηp in the highest quartile (ηp >1.44 pPa.s) and 8 of them had a diagnosis of overreaching, while in the 38 whose ηp was <1.44 mPa.s there were 20 cases of overreachings. Overt cases of OTS were found in 1 subject of the highest quintile and two in the lowest. Thus the predictive value of ηp for early stages (overreaching) or chronicized stages (overtraining syndrome) is as follows: (a) prediction of overreaching: sensitivity 28.57%; specificity 90%; positive predictive value 80%; negative predictive value 47.37%; (b) prediction of chronicized overtraining: sensitivity 2.70%; specificity 18.18%; positive predictive value; 10.00%; negative predictive value 5.26%. These results show that ηp is a rather specific, although poorly sensitive predictor of overreaching but has no interest in the diagnosis of the overtraining syndrome itself. Show more

Keywords: Overtraining, overreaching, plasma viscosity, hemorheology

Citation: Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation, vol. 35, no. 1-2, pp. 329-332, 2006

Authors: Aloulou, Ikram | Varlet-Marie, Emmanuelle | Mercier, Jacques | Brun, Jean-Frederic

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Hemorheologic effects of exercise training (“hemorheologic fitness”) are very different according to the mode and the intensity of this training. We previously reported that low intensity endurance training in sedentary patients suffering from the metabolic syndrome sumultaneously improved blood rheology, body composition and lipid oxidation at exercise. We aimed at analyzing the link among these improvements in 24 patients submitted to a 2 months targeted training designed for increasing exercise lipid oxidation. Variations of whole blood viscosity at high shear rate (ηb 1000 s−1 ) were explained here by two statistically independent determinants: hematocrit and red cell rigidity. ηb …decreased in 16 subjects, but increased in 8, due to a rise in hematocrit. Changes in RBC rigidity appeared to reflect weight loss and decrease in LDL cholesterol. Plasma viscosity was related to cholesterol and its training-induced changes are related to those of VO2 max  but not to lipid oxidation. Red cell aggregability (Myrenne) reflected both the circulating lipids (Chol, HDL and LDL) and the ability to oxidize lipids at exercise. Factors associated to a post-training decrease in aggregability (M1) were weight loss and more precisely decrease in fat mass, improvement in lipid oxidation, rise in HDL-Chol, and decrease in fibrinogen. On the whole the major determinant of hemorheologic improvement was an increase in cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2 max  ), correlated with a decrease in plasma viscosity, rather than an improvement in lipid metabolism, although RBC aggregability and deformability exhibited clear relationships with lipid metabolism. For which reason Hct increased in 30% of the patients during this kind of training remains unclear. Show more

Keywords: Blood viscosity, plasma viscosity, hemorheology, erythrocyte deformability, erythrocyte aggregability, insulin sensitivity, insulin resistance, minimal model

Citation: Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation, vol. 35, no. 1-2, pp. 333-339, 2006

Authors: Carvalho, F.A. | Maria, A.V. | Braz Nogueira, J.M. | Guerra, J. | Martins-Silva, J. | Saldanha, C.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: We stimulated human erythrocytes obtained from patients with hypercholesterolemia (HC; n=42), renal transplantation (RT; n=18) and hypertension (HT; n=10) with acetylcholine (ACh 10 μM) and measured the amperometric NO production, comparing with the NO levels achieved on erythrocytes of healthy persons (n=27). We also measured the hemoglobin, hematocrit, erythrocyte aggregation, erythrocyte deformability, plasma viscosity and fibrinogen concentration from human blood samples. The erythrocytes NO levels were of 2.5±0.7 nM (P=0.038, HC), 2.4±1.1 nM (RT) and 2.2±0.8 nM (HT) against the 2.0±0.8 nM for the control groups. For each group and at each shear stress value, the erythrocytes deformability decreases with …the increase of the NO concentration after ACh stimulation. We observed a significant increase of the control values on the erythrocyte aggregation results on each patient group. Besides the lower erythrocyte deformability obtained on HC, RT and HT blood samples, the erythrocytes produced higher NO levels after ACh stimulation than the healthy ones. The power of erythrocyte hemorheological behaviour could be compensated by the NO production at the presence of acetylcholine. We can hypothesises that cholinergic drugs could be used as co-adjuvants of specific therapeutics compounds on these studied diseases. Show more

Keywords: Nitric oxide, hemorheology, acetylcholine, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, renal transplantation

Citation: Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation, vol. 35, no. 1-2, pp. 341-347, 2006