Cell-derived microvesicles in cardiovascular diseases and antiplatelet therapy monitoring - A lesson for future trials? Current evidence, recent progresses and perspectives of clinical application

Recently great progresses have been done and international initiatives were started to unify the pre-analytical and analytical procedures, improve the comparison of measurements between the laboratories and increase detector sensitivity of flow cytometry - a golden standard for MV assessment. Likewise, the concept of a “therapeutic window” of P2Y12 inhibitor therapy was introduced, as the prognostic significance of bleeding consequences is equally important with that of ischemic events, particularly with the expanding use of more potent P2Y12 inhibitors. In this review we summarize currently available studies on circulating MV in terms of cardiovascular diagnosis, risk stratification and influence of antiplatelet agents on the MV release to postulate possible future role of MV as supplementary biomarker in monitoring of individual response to antiplatelet therapy. Methodological pitfalls faced in the previous studies and obstacles that need to be addressed before further trials and translation of MV-based assays into clinical practice were defined.