NEAR-WALL EXCESS OF PLATELET-SIZED PARTICLES: MEASUREMENTS RELEVANT TO HOLLOW-FIBER ARTIFICIAL ORGANS.

Since the platelets close to the walls of an artificial organ are most likely to be injured by surface interactions or activated by agonists released by prior thrombotic events, it is very important to understand rheological events that change their near-wall concentration. The purpose of the current studies was to examine the nature of axial development of such near-wall excesses and to illustrate the size of the excess in tubes with diameters that are typical of hollow-fiber hemodialyzers. As smaller sizes of fibers are more likely to clot than larger sizes, the axial development in 130 mu m tubes was also investigated.