| abstract |
A surface of a foreign body exposed to the flowing blood of a living being which normally would promote the aggregation of platelets in that blood to form a coating firmly affixed to that surface and thus restrict the flow of blood past that surface or to form a blood clot detachable from that surface which when detached could trigger a stroke, heart attack or partial loss of lung function, such as plastic tubing, a balloon or the end of a catheter surgically inserted in a blood vessel or a stem implanted therein, e.g., in conjunction with percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty or the interior wall of a length of plastic tubing used to transport the blood of a patient, undergoing hypothermic surgery, inhibits such aggregation when that surface is coated with a physiologically acceptable polymer, such as polyvinyl alcohol or fibrinin, containing dissolved or dispersed therein a nitroso compound, such as 2-methyl-2-nitrosopropane, which decomposes at body temperature and in so doing releases a platelet aggregation-inhibiting amount of nitric oxide during the post-surgical period when the individual is a high risk candidate for post-surgical foreign body-mediated platelet aggregation on or at the situs of the foreign body. |