EFFECTS OF CIGARETTES SMOKING ON PLATELET BEHAVIOUR AND CLOT FEATURES IN HABITUAL SMOKERS

Cigarette smoking (CS) continues to be a major health hazard, and it contributes significantly to cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Cigarette smoking impacts all phases of atherosclerosis from endothelial dysfunction to acute clinical events, the latter being largely thrombotic. Both active and passive (environmental) cigarette smoke exposure predispose to cardiovascular events. To our knowledge, there have been no reports on the relationship between current cigarette smoking and clot features in subjects without any known cardiovascular risk factors. We sought to investigate whether plasma fibrin clot structure/function differ between healthy smokers and never-smokers. Key Words: Cigarette smoking (CS) - Platelets - plasma clot - Fibrinolysis - Red cell deformability - Blood viscosity - Plasma viscosity