Determination of erythrocyte and platelet membranary permeability and its importance for the study of arterial pressure in physiological and pathological conditions.

The World Health Organization and the International Society of Hypertension continue to focus on assessing the cardiovascular risk of arterial hypertension and on developing a hierarchy of risk factors. Among the factors involved in the etiopathogeny of arterial hypertension, less attention has been given to the relations between the figurate elements of the blood (red cells and platelets) and the endothelial factors involved in vasomotricity. This motivates further research into the permeability of the erythrocyte and the platelet membrane in physiological and pathological conditions. Modern investigation methods have been employed in the study of a group of 100 patients with hypertension, both females and males, in various stages of the disease, who were compared with a group of controls. Results pointed to alterations of both eryhtrocyte and platelet membrane permeability dependent on the stage of the hypertensive disease and its complications. Despite the important individual variations that limit the diagnostic value of the investigations, they will contribute to an early diagnosis in the initial stages (I and II) of the disease and will point to the possibility of complications to occur. The correlations between alterations of platelet and erythrocyte permeability and the activity of gammaglutamyltransferase, the level of thiolic grouping and of cholesterol in the blood cell membrane provide additional information about the mechanism of interrelations between the latter and the vascular endothelial factors in physiological and pathological conditions such as arterial hypertension in various stages of evolution and its complications.