Unplugging platelet function tests: reassessing the gold standard

As students of medicine and the allied healthcare fields, we are taught to assess research methodology with a critical eye and not to take conclusions at face value. How often, however, are we encouraged to question established practice? This article describes the re-evaluation of current best practice in diagnosing platelet function abnormalities. The gold standard test among platelet function tests (PFTs) is light transmission aggregometry (LTA). This test has been used for more than two decades, and it has only recently been proposed that LTA is due for re-evaluation; critics suggest that it never wholly fulfilled its function to begin with.