diagnostic significance of ascitic fluid ferritin

ABSTRACT

This work was done on 25 patients [13 males and 12 females] suffering from ascites. They were subjected to careful history taking, thorough clinical examinations, liver function tests, complete blood pictures and ESR, tumor markers for suspected cases of malignancy, tuberculin tests and Ziehl-Neelsen stains, urine and stool examinations and sigmoidoscopy for schistosomal diagnosis. Abdominal CT and ultrasonography, abdominal paracentesis and analysis of ascitic fluid for biochemical, bacteriological, cytological and determination of ferritin level by ELISA were also done. Tuberculous peritonitis was characterized by high ascitic LDH, high ascitic ferritin and the presence of lymphocytes in the ascitic fluid. So, the estimation of ascitic fluid ferritin was superior to LDH and was a sensitive, reliable and an easy test for the distinction of various forms of ascites