Plasma
fibronectin is regarded to play an important part in a decrease of the resistance to
infections. To specify the role of
fibronectin in the pathogenesis of infectious complications in patients with depressions of hemopoiesis, the content of this
opsonin was measured by ELISA in 113 patients with different patterns of hemoblastoses, lymphoproliferative diseases and with an aplastic syndrome. In 42 patients, the concentration of
opsonin was measured in the presence of the superimposed
infection of varying gravity. The
fibronectin content was examined in 39 patients before, during and after completion of the
cytostatic polychemotherapy. It turned out that in patients with paraproteinemic hemoblastoses, lymphogranulomatosis,
aplastic anemia, chronic lympholeukemia, acute lympho- and myelo(mono)blastic
leukemias,
cyclic neutropenia, chronic myelosis and hematosarcomas, the concentration of
fibronectin remained normal in the absence of
infections. The computation of the linear correlation ratio did not reveal any association between the
opsonin level and the concentration of neoplastic elements in the peripheral blood. Repeated measurements of the
fibronectin level in patients whose underlying disease ran its course in association with marked neoplastic
fever failed to detect any deficiency of the
glycoprotein. The lowering of the
fibronectin level was recorded in patients with a grave concomitant
infection of the type of
sepsis, necrotic enteropathy and
lobar pneumonia. The degree of
opsonin deficiency correlated with the patients' disease gravity. Prolonged reduction in the blood
fibronectin level was of unfavourable prognostic importance.
Cytostatic polychemotherapy, myelotoxic
agranulocytosis as well as infectious complications of low gravity did not influence the concentration of
fibronectin.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)