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Plasma thrombomodulin levels in lung cancer patients
T Yilmaz1, M Akman, B Tutluoğlu
1PTT Hospital, Chest Diseases Department, Istanbul, Turkey.
Background:
Thrombomodulin (TM) is a glycoprotein and besides its anticoagulant property it is accepted as an onco developmental antigen. Considering these properties we hypothesised that active TMB might have a role in cancer cell behaviour.
Methods:
We measured serum TMB levels by the enzyme immunoassay method in 40 patients with lung cancer and 20 healthy subjects.
Results:
TMB levels were found as 54.6 +/- 11.5 in controls and 60.9 +/- 31.2 ng/ml in lung cancer patients TM levels were 59.4 +/- 24.2 ng/ml in 24 epidermoid carcinoma patients, 65 +/- 50.2 ng/ml in 10 small cell carcinoma patients and 60 +/- 18.4 ng/ml in 6 adenocarcinoma patients. Patients with stage 4 and distant metastasis had a value of 65 +/- 33.9 ng/ml. No significant differences were found between healthy subjects and cancer patients. Also the differences between 3 groups of patients were insignificant.
Conclusions:
It was concluded that serum TMB levels could not be accepted as a tumour marker in lung cancer patients.