[Accelerated degradation of prostacyclin in diabetic plasma--a further factor in the impairment of hemostatic balance?].

Prostacyclin is degraded in human plasma in vitro with an average half-life of 10 minutes. The degradation in plasma of patients suffering from type II diabetes mellitus is significantly enhanced. However, the inactivation of prostacyclin in plasma in patients with clinical manifestations of atherosclerosis, such as peripheral vascular disease, is unchanged. Methodological studies reveal that storage of plasma at various temperatures up to investigation, repeated freezing and thawing, as well as the addition of thromboxane-synthetase inhibitors do not exert any effect on plasmatic degradation of PGI2. In addition, no differences are found in plasmatic degradation in diabetics in accordance with the mode of treatment. The presence of a factor in human plasma in diabetics capable of increasing PGI2 degradation or the loss of a possible stabilizer could be one further important parameter, amongst others responsible for the development of either macro- or microangiopathy in diabetes mellitus.