Clinical relevance of leukocyte-associated endotoxins measured by semi-automatic synthetic luminescent substrate method.

A newly developed semi-automatic synthetic luminescence substrate (SALS) method for measuring endotoxin was compared with the existing turbidimetric kinetic assay (TKA) using leukocyte-rich plasma to verify its usefulness. As a result, the endotoxin levels by this method were higher than that by the existing assay in most specimens, and the time required for measurement was much shorter. In addition, the leukocyte-rich plasma endotoxin level minus the plasma endotoxin levels were named leukocyte-associated endotoxin, and these levels per one leukocyte were compared. As a result, those levels were highly correlated with the endotoxin measurement levels of leukocyte-rich plasma. The correlation coefficient of SALS method was superior to the existing TKA method, the endotoxin level by this method may be close to true endotoxin levels.