Serum proteins in heavily burnt patients

Several serum proteins, such as prealbumin, protease inhibitors, immunoglobulins, metalloproteins and inflammatory glycoproteins were determined in the sera of heavily burnt patients by radial immunodiffusion. An increase of acute phase reactant glycoproteins (orsomucoid, haptoglobin, haemopexin, C-reactive protein), C3-complement, immunoglobulins, prealbumin and of the protease inhibitors (a1-antitrypsin, a2-macroglobulin) was found. For some proteins, such as prealbumin, haemopexin, immunoglobulins, this increase was preceeded by a decrease on days 3 to 5 post-burn. The time course of the increase was variable, faster for some patients and slower for others: orosomucoid, C-reactive protein, C3-complement reached peak values between days 6 and 8; immunoglobulins and hemopexin decreased then towards normal values. No significant increase was found for ceruloplasmin, transferrin, beta2-glycoprotein, a2-SH glycoprotein and GC-globulin. It is proposed that the selective overproduction of the above mentioned proteins may be related to the stimulation of acute-phase reactant protein synthesis by the liver as a result of tissue breakdown produced by the circulating proteases and especially by elastases and collagenases as was shown previously (Miskulin et al., 1978; Moati et al., 1978a).