Thromboxane A2 in skin-bleeding-time blood and in clotted venous blood before and after administration of acetylsalicylic acid.

The 'Simplate' technique for measuring skin bleeding time was adapted to quantify thromboxane A2 in the emerging blood as the stable degradation product thromboxane B2 in twelve Swedish and ten English volunteers. During the bleeding time thromboxane B2 concentrations increased, but as the rate of blood loss fell the rate of production of thromboxane A2 was constant. The English subjects had shorter bleeding times and produced more thromboxane A2 than the Swedish subjects. When the Swedish subjects were grouped according to bleeding times those with the shortest had more thromboxane A2 than those with longer bleeding times. Clotting venous blood in vitro produced much more thromboxane A2 than bleeding-time blood and there was no correlation with bleeding time. Determination of the capacity of clotting blood to form thromboxane A2 is therefore irrelevant to in-vivo haemostasis. Acetylsalicylic acid greatly diminished the appearance of thromboxane A2 in the bleeding time and prevented the increase of thromboxane A2 concentration with time.