Fibrinogen and cerebral blood flow: A correlative study

Cerebral Blood Flow (CBF; ¹³³Xenon inhalation method) and plasma fibrinogen concentration (radial immunodiffusion) were determined in one hundred and seventy-eight subjects: 1) forty-nine normal subjects, 2) sixty-five vascular risk-factored patients, and 3) sixty-four chronic stroke patients.

Due to its strong dependence on age, CBF was also considered as normalized (or z-CBF) values. In each group, both CBF and z-CBF global values (for normal subjects and risk-factored patients) and hemispheric values of the stroke hemisphere were employed for correlations (Pearson's “r”) with plasma fibrinogen.

No significant correlation was found between these parameters in any of the groups studied.

These data thus suggest that CBF is independent of plasma fibrinogen concentration, probably due to its autoregulation, in normal subjects as well as in patients prone to develop, or affected with, cerebrovascular disease.