Measurement of the Rate of Clot Retraction

Summary

The volume of serum exuded from clot was measured with time in the presence of platelets. The change of the volume of clot followed the first order kinetics with respect to time and the rate constant (k) was introduced to assay for clot retraction. The value of k and maximal serum volume exuded from clot, Vf, are dependent on the number of platelets, but the way k depends on the number of platelets is different from that Vf does on it. This suggests that these two parameters reflect the different phases of clot retraction.

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