Plasma Fibrinogen Estimation: a Comparison of the Heat Precipitation and Dry Weight Methods

Abstract

Plasma fibrinogen occupies a central role in coagulation as well as being a predictor of inflammation and cardiovascular disease. Thus a simple and rapid method for its estimation will be advantageous. A total of 80 apparently healthy volunteers were used in this study and plasma fibrinogen was estimated by a heat precipitation and a dry weight method. Correlation between the two techniques was r =0.4512, (p <0.001) with a mean ± standard deviation of 3.30 ± 1 .06g/L for heat precipitation techniques and 3.38 ± 1 .86g/L for dry weight method. This was not significant (p>0.05).
Within-run precision expressed as coefficient of variation (CV) showed that the heat precipitation method had a lower CV of 32.12% compared with dry weight method with a CV of 55 .3% and is more precise (p<0.05). There was a weak correlation between haematocrit values and plasma fibrinogen concentration obtained by heat precipitation method (r = 0.2450, p<0.05). Heat precipitation method was recommended as a result of simplicity, precision and short duration.