Rapid fibrinogen determination with the prothrombin time using a potentiophotometer.

The potentiophotometer (PTPH) is a spectrophotometric device that embodies the electrical, analog solution to Beer's Law. The output of the instrument gives, directly and simultaneously, the concentration of the substance being measured. The PTPH has been applied to the manual determination of fibrinogen (FBG) with the same thrombopalstin injection as the prothrombin time (PT). We have now semi-automated and computerized the PTPH to constitute the coagulation instrument named POTENS+. POTENS+ determines the FBG rapidly, within approximately three to twenty seconds after the PT. With POTENS+, precision, linearity and reference range will be given for its FBG method. The accuracy of POTENS+ will be assessed by comparing it with both automated FBG methods on the MLA Electra 1000C Coagulation Timer. Of these two methods, the automated Clauss method is used as the reference method.