The importance of hemorheology in internal medicine

: An increase of blood and plasma viscosity, an increased aggregation of erythrocytes and a decreased deformability of erythrocytes are pathogenetically important for a disturbance of the microcirculation. In rigidity of the vascular wall due to vasosclerosis according to Hagen-Poiseuille's law the fluidity of blood essentially determines the size of blood circulation, and a reduced blood flow by an impairment to the nutritive capillary blood supply leads to hypoxic tissue damages. For a series of pictures of a disease, such as polycythaemias, anaemias, paraproteinoses, diabetes mellitus, Raynaud's syndrome, myocardial infarction, degenerative angiopathies, are changes of the blood rheology of clinical relevancy. Own examinations on patients with chronic ischaemic heart disease resulted in a positive correlation between hyperviscosity and hyperlipidaemia. A treatment of the disturbed blood fluidity is at present possible by means of haemodilution, reduction of fibrinogen, improvement of the deformability of erythrocytes as well as of necessary by plasmapheresis.