[Blood viscosity in ischemic heart disease].

Through a capillary viscometer we measured venous and arterial blood viscosity (BV) in 25 patients with the diagnosis of ischemic heart disease (IHD); 10 of them with unstable angor pectoris (UA) and 15 with acute myocardial infarction (MI). The control group consisted of 100 normal individuals in whom the normal values were 2.70 +/- 0.10 centipoises, where as in patients with AU the values were 4.03 +/- 1.40 centipoises and in the group with MI was 3.65 +/- 1.20 centipoises. Statistically, we correlated the BV obtained in both groups with the following parameters: coronary risk factors, cell blood count; serum glucose, cholesterol and triglycerides as well as the number of coronary arteries involved. The levels of venous and arterial BV were elevated in both groups of patients in comparison with the control group. We concluded that arterial and venous BV is elevated in patients with IHD independently of the hematocrit. This suggest the probability of some other factors such as plasmatic viscosity and platelets aggregation could play a role in the BV elevation of this group of patients.