Evaluation of a rapid method of determination of plasma fibrinogen.

An evaluation was made of a rapid semiautomated method of determining fibrinogen levels in bovine plasma. This method, the fibrometer method of Morse, Panek and Menga (8), is based on the principle that when thrombin is added to suitably diluted plasma the time of clotting is linearly related to the fibrinogen concentration. A standard curve prepared using bovine plasma had an r value of .9987 and analysis of variance showed there was no significant deviation from regression. A comparison of the fibrometer method and the biuret method of Ware, Guest and Seegers done on 158 bovine plasma samples showed good correlation between the two methods. It was concluded that the fibrometer method does measure bovine fibrinogen and has considerable merit for use in clinical diseases of cattle.