Feasibility of recording clot lysis with the thermometric clot detector.

Currently, the study of fibrinolysis is beset by problems of methodology (1 ). Disadvantages of many of the present methods for measurement of clot lysisincluding lysis time for the dilute blood clot, thromboelastography, euglobulin clot lysis, fibrin plate method, and caseinolytic assay (1 )-are imprecision of results and time required to perform the test (2). The electromechanical lysis timer of Folus and Kramer (2) appears to be the only readily automated device, but so far it has not proven entirely satisfactory for measuring lysis time (3). Among the continuousrecording devices, the thromboelastograph reportedly indicates fibrinolysis (4); however, it is expensive and insufficiently sensitive (4). In this communication, we report the feasibility of using a thermometric clot timer (5, 6) to study fibrinolysis.