Evaluation of Coagulation Abnormalities in Lung Cancer Patients

OBJECTIVE: To determine the coagulation abnormalities in patients with lung cancer. STUDY DESIGN: Case-control study. PLACE AND DURATION: Department of Pathology Isra University Hospital Hyderabad, Sindh – Pakistan, and Department of Medicine Liaquat University of Medical & Health Sciences Jamshoro, Sindh – Pakistan, from June 2006 to December 2007. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Seventy subjects were recruited for the study by non-probability convenient sampling technique. Forty freshly diagnosed histopathology proven lung cancer patients were taken as cases, whereas 30 healthy subjects comprised the control group. Platelet count (PLT) was done on hematology analyzer while prothrombin time (PT), activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) and plasma D-dimer tests were performed by commercially available kits at Department of Pathology, Isra University Hospital Hyderabad, Sindh – Pakistan. Ttest was applied to determine the significance of differences between two groups whereas Pvalue up to .05 was taken as significant. RESULTS: The mean±SD PLT in cases and controls was 394±170 and 216±73 respectively. The mean±SD values for these respective groups were for PT 14.7±0.5 and 12.6±0.4, for APTT 41.5±6.2 and 25.8±3.7. D-dimer levels were <500 in all 30 controls whereas these were up to 2000 in cases. CONCLUSION: There is a strong relationship between coagulation abnormalities and lung cancer. D-dimer is very sensitive for evaluation of fibrinolyis related with lung cancer.