Determination of fibrinogen in plasma

This paper compares two specific, rapid, functional methods for the measurement of fibrinogen. Both methods demonstrate a high degree of reproduceability (thrombin clotting time CV = 3.7 percent, clot density rate CV = 7.6 percent). Measurement of plasmas from 20 patients by both techniques showed excellent correlation between the two methods with a correlation coefficient of 0.93 by least squares method. The initial dilution step in the thrombin clotting time method bypasses interference by small amounts of heparin or other inhibitors in jaundiced samples which may present a problem in the measurement of the rate of density development in the clot density method.