Plasma endotoxin in typhoid fever.

Plasma endotoxin contents of the patients with sepsis or typhoid fever were measured by two sophisticated chromogenic limulus tests; Endospecy and Toxicolor tests. Endospecy test is the endotoxin-specific test and Toxicolor is responsible for both endotoxin and (1,3)-beta-D-glucan. Plasma was pretreated by our new PCA method which resolved the problem as to the detection of a lesser amount of plasma endotoxin when pretreated by the conventional PCA method. Although Toxicolor values have been reported to exceed more than the Endospecy value, under complicated pathophysiological situations, almost all specimens of these patients had a similar value, except in one expired septic shock case. In 18 typhoid fever cases, Salmonella typhi was isolated only from the bile in 5 cases, however endotoxemia occurred in 11 cases (61.1%). Within the first 4 days, the incidence of endotoxemia was higher (10/14, 71.4%). These results suggest that endotoxin assay seemed to be a useful tool for the diagnosis of typhoid fever.