Antiplatelet Antibody

Excerpt

To the editor: In their recent paper (Ann Intern Med 83:190-196, 1975) Lackner and Karpatkin reported that many patients with the "easy bruising" syndrome have abnormal platelet function, increased percentages of megathrombocytes, and an elevated prevalence of antiplatelet antibody. I agree that the easy bruising in these patients reflects a qualitative platelet defect, but I question whether the defect is the result of an autoimmune process. Most of the patients studied were women of child-bearing age and, unless the target platelets used for platelet antibody testing were autologous, the increased frequency of platelet antibody activity could be explained by the