Abstract
Plasma antithrombin III (AT III) activity was determined in 50 patients with various liver diseases, comparing with immunological activity (antigen), hepaplastintest (HPT) and other liver function tests.
Plasma AT III activity was determined by the method of Nakamura using chromogenic substrate and antigen was measured by SRID.
1) In acute hepatitis, AT III activity (67±38.6 %, normal: 100±20) varied from significant low value in the patients with severe hepatocellular damage to high value in the patients of convalescence and cholestatic type (125±19.2). Marked reduction of AT III activity was observed in fulminant hepatitis (16.2±12.0) and decompensated liver cirrhosis (22.3±9.8). In hepatoma, AT III activity (62.8±31.9) varied widely from normal to low levels and showed rather higher value than that of decompensated cirrhosis.
2) There was a significant positive correlation between AT III activity and antigen in whole liver diseases (r=0.87, p<0.01, n=50), however the AT III activity tended to be lower than that of antigen in severe parenchymal damage, e. g. fulminant hepatitis, decompensated cirrhosis and some patients of acute hepatitis.
In some case, there was observed definite dissociation between AT III activity and antigen. This fact may suggest the possible hypercoagulable state followed by release of a large amount of tissue thromboplastin, endotoxin or appearance of abnormal protein.
3) Both determinations showed a similar lower value in cases with severe parenchymal damage, but AT III activity tended to show a higher value than HPT in cases with cholestasis, convalescence and hepatoma.
The determination of AT III activity seems to provide a clinical significant information different from AT III antigen or HPT in liver diseases.
