Effect of Lung and Gut Heparin on Experimental Arterial Thrombosis

Abstract

The most widely used form of heparin for the treatment of thromboembolism has for many years been a preparation derived from porcine intestinal mucosa (hereafter referred to as gut heparin). Recently, a preparation of heparin extracted from bovine lung (hereafter referred to as lung heparin) was made available commercially for therapeutic purposes. Novak et al. (2), in 1972, reported that blood samples obtained after intravenous administration of gut heparin to human volunteers showed a tendency toward shorter platelet aggregation time and longer aggregate dispersion time in response to ADP, whereas volunteers given lung heparin exhibited changes in the opposition direction. They also demonstrated that platelet thrombus formation in vitro using Chandler’s loop technique was accelerated in the blood samples obtained after injection of gut heparin, compared with that after injection of lung heparin. Goldberg et al. (1) reported that the incidence of loss of radial arterial pulse that followed brachial arterial catheterization with gut heparin as an anticoagulant was significantly reduced when lung heparin was used.