Lupus anticoagulants (LA) are IgG or IgM antibodies against phospholipids which in vivo represent an important thrombophilic factor despite their in vitro anticoagulant activity. We investigated the fibrinolytic system of 20 patients with connective tissue disease and positive LA, compared to a control group of 24 age- and disease-matched patients without LA. There was no statistically significant difference of alpha 2-antiplasmin, plasminogen, fibrinogen, t-PA activity, D-dimers and heparin cofactor II, between the two groups. Although t-PA was uniformly low in both groups, plasminogen activator inhibitor activity (PAI) was significantly higher in LA cases (p less than 0.001). Increased PAI levels represent an inhibitory factor of the fibrinolytic defense mechanism, which together with other functional deviations may contribute to the thrombophilic tendency of LA patients.