Increased production of fibronectin by fibroblasts from pre-cancerous scars.

The detection of those post-burn scars which have become established pre-malignant lesions is difficult. I describe a highly sensitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for fibronectin (FN) production by fibroblasts from scar tissue. The amount of FN produced by fibroblasts from scar tissue adjacent to an area of squamous cell carcinoma was found to be 30 times that produced by fibroblasts from normal scar tissue. Thus, this method may be a useful indicator of scars which are pre-malignant.