ABSTRACT
Twenty-nine patients with different types of pleural effusion and 10 apparently healthy persons constituted the material of this study. Plasma and pleural fluid fibronectins were estimated by radial immunodiffusion method in an attempt to evaluate the possible diagnostic role of fibronectin in pleural effusion cases. The results showed that plasma fibronectin of patients was 218 +/- 72 ug/mI compared with 288 +/- 48 ug/ml in the control group. The lowest value was observed among empyema cases [108 +/- 17 ug/ml]. The highest concentrations of pleural fluid fibronectin were found in both tuberculous [325.28 +/- 21.3 ug/ml] and malignant cases [292.55 +/- 38.5 ug/ml]. Pleural fluid/plasma fibronectin ratio was equal to one in empyema cases, more than one in both tuberculous and malignant cases and less than one in transudative group