COMPLEMENT COMPONENTS AND FIBRINOGEN - CORRELATIONS AND ASSOCIATION WITH PREVIOUS MYOCARDIAL-INFARCTION

Serum complement levels have been found to be predictive of myocardial infarction up to 4 years before the acute event. To assess whether th ey are a marker of a hypercoagulable state, the serum or plasma levels of C3, C4, C3a, C4a, C1 inactivator, antithrombin III, protein S, pro tein C, fibrinogen and tissue plasminogen activator were measured in 3 1 patients with previous myocardial infarction and 33 controls (all ma les, 40-60 years old). C3, C4 and fibrinogen (which share the common c haracteristic of being acute phase proteins) were correlated and were associated with previous myocardial infarction, although this associat ion persisted only for C4 in multivariate analysis. None of the coagul ative variables directly involved in the complement system differed si gnificantly in the two groups.