Erythrocyte rheology in acute cerebral thrombosis. Effects of ABO blood groups.

Within a few hours after a cerebral thrombosis in 220 patients, the flow-properties of the red blood cells (RBC) were analyzed by a filtration test that expresses quantitatively the deformability and aggregability of the RBC by the filtration indexes pT. Abnormal deformability of the RBC washed clean of plasma was found in 27.5% of the patients. Aggregability disorders, caused by the plasma trapped between the unwashed RBC, were found in 78.6% of the patients: computation of correlation coefficients between pT indexes and fibrinogen, which was found abnormally high in 88.2% of cases, demonstrated significantly that in the patients with A and B blood groups these aggregability disorders were due to fibrinogen and that they were caused by other components of plasma in patients with O and AB blood groups. All these disorders can account for blood hyperviscosity.