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A method permitting the differentiation between the types of pulmonary inflammatory processes in patients with nonspecific diseases of the respiratory organs by the parameters of blood plasma acid-soluble fraction is suggested. If the inflammation is of an infectious origin (pneumonia, chronic bronchitis), the ratio of low-molecular to high-molecular fractions of the blood plasma acid-soluble fraction is 4.2 +/- 1.8. In allergic inflammations (bronchial asthma) this ratio is 9.0 +/- 5.8. The results of this test were in line with clinical laboratory and x-ray findings in 86.7% of the examinees. In complex with other methods of examination, the described technique may be used for the differential diagnosis of allergic and infectious inflammations in patients with respiratory diseases.

The authors' findings evidence that measurements of cationic protein levels is a sufficiently informative test in the complex of investigations that help predict the course of acute pneumonia and the therapeutic efficacy of drugs stimulating the nonspecific resistance of the body. Combined therapy with the use of methyluracil and eleutherococcus is more effective for pneumonia patients than the complex including aloe and antibacterial and symptomatic agents alone.

In vitro exposure of the blood to UV irradiation and ultrasound changes the content of cationic proteins in polynuclear leukocytes. The difference (vs. the intact blood) is diagnostically valuable, for it helps locate the inflammation in the lungs, determine the origin of the bronchial spasm, and predict resistance to relapses of pulmonary inflammations.

Specific (tuberculin, adrenalin) and nonspecific (ultrasound, phenol) in vitro exposures of the blood improve the diagnostic informativeness of the red cell sedimentation rate measurements. Similarity of the results of measurements, carried out by the suggested and the reference techniques in more than 550 patients, gives grounds to employ the suggested modifications of tuberculin diagnosis, of detecting a beta-adrenodependent bronchospasm, of assessing the pattern and the activity of an inflammation in pneumonias. Practical and statistical rationale for the suggested methods is given.