Plasma fibrinogen measurement in the horse: comparison of Millar''s technique with a chronometric technique and the -Vet Autoreader™

Plasma fibrinogen is widely used in horse practice as an unspecific positive marker of inflammatory diseases; it is also lowered in disseminated intravascular coagulation. Three fibrinogen measurement methods--Millar's heat-denaturation in a microhaematocrit tube, automated reader for heat-denaturation, and chronometric measurement of clot formation after addition of excess thrombin-were compared by means of Passing-Bablock's regression and Bland-Altman difference plots, in blood plasma of 30 clinically healthy and 57 diseased horses. Correlations between the three techniques were excellent (r >0.92). The two heat-denaturation techniques correlated very closely up to 6 g l(-1), above which the results obtained by Millar's technique started to fall below those obtained by the automatic reader. There was proportional bias between Millar's technique and the chronometric technique, with the latter producing results some 30% lower, indicating that reference intervals and decision limits should be adapted accordingly.