Comparison of immunological and functional assays for measurement of soluble fibrin

Abstract

Various assays have been developed for quantitation of soluble fibrin or fibrin monomer in clinical plasma samples, since this parameter directly reflects in vivo thrombin action on fibrinogen. Using plasma samples from healthy blood donors, patients with cerebral ischemic insult, patients with septicemia, and patients with venous thrombosis, we compared two immunologic tests using monoclonal antibodies against fibrin-specific neo-epitopes, and two functional tests based on the cofactor activity of soluble fibrin complexes in tPA-induced plasminogen activation. Test A (Enzymun-Test FM) showed the best discriminating power among normal range and pathological samples. Test B (Fibrinostika soluble fibrin) clearly separated normal range from pathological samples, but failed to discriminate among samples from patients with low grade coagulation activation in septicemia, and massive activation in venous thrombosis. Functional test C (Fibrin monomer test Behring) displayed good discriminating power between normal and pathological range samples, and correlated with test A (r = 0.61), whereas assay D (Coa-Set Fibrin monomer) showed little discriminating power at values below 10 micrograms/ml and little correlation with other assays. Standardization of assays will require further characterization of analytes detected.