Hemostatic factors in rabbit limb lymph: relationship to mechanisms regulating extravascular coagulation

Departments of 1 Pathology and 3 Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0612; and 2 Section of General Surgery and Trauma, University of Arizona Health Sciences Center, Tucson, Arizona 85924 Mechanisms regulating extravascular coagulation in interstitial fluids of peripheral tissues are poorly understood, since measurements of hemostatic factors in these fluids are unavailable. Because lymph from a body region reflects the composition of its interstitial fluid, we measured hemostatic factors in limb lymph of rabbits both as activity and as antigen. Mean lymph-to-plasma activity ratios were the following: fibrinogen, 0.28; prothrombin, 0.26; factor X, 0.27; factor VII, 0.17; and factors V and VIII, 0.08. All lymph fibrinogen was clottable; fibrin degradation products were absent. Lymph von Willebrand factor antigen was