Accuracy and reliability of point-of-care platelet assays in hemodialysis patients

The point-of-care platelet assay (VerifyNow® Aspirin assay) is a convenient and accurate assay used to measure baseline platelet function and to assess the platelet inhibition effect of aspirin in the nondialysis population. We evaluated the accuracy and reliability of this assay in the measurement of baseline platelet function in hemodialysis (HD) patients by assessing its precision, reproducibility and agreement with the gold standard assay optical aggregometry. We studied 25 adult patients on HD for at least 2 months who were not taking aspirin or taking any other medications known to interfere with platelet function. This study showed that point-of-care platelet function assessment with the VerifyNow assay in this HD cohort was reliable with a high degree of accuracy, and had strong agreement with optical aggregometry.