ABSTRACT
The Thrombohemorrhagic Balance is extremely complex and a full understanding of intrinsic system, applicable to clinical medicine, lies in the future. Deep venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, which are closely linked, are frequent diseases. Thrombin is crucial both for hemostasis and thrombosis, the former being life-saving, the latter life-threatening. Based on intimate cooperation between the vessel wall and blood constituents, this detrimental effect of thrombin is challenged by ingenious defense mechanisms. In order to minimize blood loss in a casualty, it is imperative that thrombin is formed rapidly, both to activate platelets and to convert fibrinogen into fibrin. The fibrinolytic system is based on a plasma zymogen, plasminogen, which when activated to plasmin digests fibrin much more avidly than fibrinogen. Fibrinogenolysis besides fibrinolysis, may however, be important in the effect of thrombolysis in acute myocardial infarction, because fibrinogen is the ligand that binds platelets together in an aggregate, and is the main contributor to plasma viscosity.
