Blood and plasma viscosity in experimentally induced hyper- and hypo-fibrinogenaemia.

For some time now fibrinogen has been attributed considerable importance in influencing blood and plasma viscosity. This paper attempts to experimentally confirm this statement in vivo: two groups of arteriopathic patients were selected for investigating viscosity in hyper- and hypo-fibrinogenaemia induced by PTA and a cycle of fibrinolytic treatment with urokinase respectively. Although fibrinogenaemia exhibited highly significant changes under such conditions, there was no important change in viscosity. Probably the role of fibrinogen in influencing viscosity has been overestimated in the past and it is likely that there are other more important factors.