The effect of different clinical conditions on urinary dolichols was studied in 219 hospital patients and in 24 pregnant women. Significantly increased urinary dolichol levels were found in patients with severe bacterial infections (mean +/- SEM, 37.5 +/- 8.0 micrograms/mmol creatinine, P less than 0.001), in patients with haematological or metastatic (23.3. +/- 5.1, P less than 0.05) as well as localised (15.4 +/- 1.8, P less than 0.01) malignancies and in pregnant women (22.2 +/- 1.8, P less than 0.001) as compared to healthy controls (6.6 +/- 0.4). These results show that urinary excretion of dolichols may be increased, not only in alcoholics and patients with some rare neurodegenerative storage diseases, but also in patients suffering from various other diseases.