Platelet inhibitors and monitoring platelet function: implications for bleeding.

Cardiovascular disease is prevalent in our medical and surgical. Patients who have atherosclerotic heart disease suffer from endothelial disorders that predispose them to plaque and thrombus formation in diseased arteries. As our knowledge of platelet physiology improves, we can understand the contribution of platelet activation to arterial disease and we can specifically inhibit that activation with platelet-inhibitory drugs. The recent increase in the number of coronary interventional procedures performed has spawned the increasing use of antiplatelet medication as prophylaxis against thrombus formation in the instrumented artery.