Effect of galantamine on platelet functions in healthy elderly people

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES: Galantamine, a centrally-acting cholinesterase inhibitor, has been used in the treatment of mild-to-moderate dementia of Alzheimer disease. Increased mortality, mainly due to cardiovascular events, was observed in placebo-controlled trials of galantamine. Several studies have evaluated the efficacy of galantamine in dementia, it is not clear whether it has an effect on platelet function. It is important to clarify this effect, because it may be related to thrombotic tendency or bleeding diathesis. This study was aimed to investigate the effect of galantamine on platelet aggregation in whole blood from healthy, elderly subjects. METHODS: Fifteen healthy (mean age 76.8 ± 7.2 yr) volunteers were included in the study. Three concentrations of galantamine solution (20, 40 and 80 ng/μl) were prepared. Each concentration of galantamine solution and control diluent without galantamine were incubated with whole blood. After incubation, aggregation responses were evaluated with ADP (5 μM) and collagen (2 μg/ml) in platelet-rich plasma. RESULTS: Compared to control, pre-incubation with all dilutions of galantamine had no detectable effect on platelet aggregation response induced by ADP and collagen. Galantamine also had no detectable effect on platelet aggregation in a dose-dependent manner. INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSIONS: This in vitro study suggested that galantamine administration had no effect on platelet aggregation in the clinically relevant doses.