A Heparin-Precipitable Fraction of Human Plasma. II. Occurrence and Significance of the Fraction in Normal Individuals and in Various Disease States1

The preceding paper (1) describes the isola- tion and some of the physical chemical character- istics of a fraction of human plasma which precipi- tates at low temperatures in the presence of hep- arin. Evidence was presented suggesting that the fraction is closely related to or associated with fibrinogen. This paper is concerned with an ac- count of the method routinely employed for estimating the fraction, and with a presentation of data obtained by this method in normal individuals of all ages, and serially in ill patients. Attempts have been made to correlate the changes in the component with other recognized measurements of inflammatory disease.