Activated partial thromboplastin time abnormality in patients with cholangiocarcinoma

Cholangiocarcinoma can be detected worldwide, but is most common in tropical areas where crowded living conditions and poor sanitation exist. This infection can demonstrate a wide spectrum of clinical presentations from no complaints to arrest. Similar to the other liver diseases, the activated partial thromboplastin time abnormality can be seen in the patients with cholangiocarcinoma. The activated partial thromboplastin times among 33 Thai hospitalized patients with cholangiocarcinoma are studied. The correlation between the activated partial thromboplastin time and the other characteristics of the patients is studied. Most characteristics of the patients show no significant correlation with activated partial thromboplastin time (p > 0.05). The only two parameters that showed significant correlation are alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) (p < 0.05). Because the activated partial thromboplastin times shows significant relation to AST and ALT but not to serum bilirubin and alkaline phosphatase, this might mention that the prolonged activated partial thromboplastin time seems to relate with the process of hepatic parenchyma damage than the biliary tract obstruction. Hence, as a hypothesis, the prolonged activated partial thromboplastin time might be a useful indication for excessive parenchymal involvement in cholangiocarcinoma. However, because the total number of cases in this study is rather small, a larger study to answer this question is necessary. In addition, the more systematic evaluations are required to answer the raised hypothesis.