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Ajay S. Gupta, MBBS; Manuel E. Velasco, MD; Anthony M. Iannone, MD; Pitamber Somani, MD, PhD; Sankaridung Periyaswamy, PhD; Mukesh Jain, MB, BS

Arch Neurol. 1986;43(5):513-515.

Abstract
• We studied the effect of nucleus pulposus (NP) on platelet aggregation. Our in vitro experiments showed that NP extract produced platelet aggregation and the addition of collagenase to the NP extract abolished this response. It was further shown that chymopapain did not affect the activity of the extract. We assume that collagen is the active platelet aggregant in the NP extract. Intravascular release of collagen may cause platelet aggregation, vascular obstruction, ischemia, and cord necrosis in a patient with acute transverse myelitis. Intradiskal chymopapain is known to cause transverse myelitis and it is possible that collagen released during the action of the enzyme initiates a similar chain of events.

Author Affiliations
From the Departments of Neurology (Drs Gupta and Iannone), Pathology (Dr Velasco), and Pharmacology (Drs Somani, Periyaswamy, and Jain), Medical College of Ohio at Toledo.

Footnotes
Accepted for publication Sept 26, 1985.

Reprint requests to the Department of Neurology, Medical College of Ohio, CS 10008, Toledo, OH 43699 (Dr Iannone).)