Clinical and prognostic significance of coagulation assays in lung cancer

Activation of coagulation and fibrinolysis is frequently encountered among cancer patients. Such tumors are supposed to be associated with higher risk of invasion, metastases and eventually worse outcome. The aim of this study is to explore the prognostic value of blood coagulation tests for lung cancer patients. The study comprised 110 lung cancer patients. Pretreatment blood coagulation tests including PT, aPTT, PTA, INR, D-dimer, fibrinogen levels and platelet counts were evaluated. The plasma level of all coagulation tests revealed statistically significant difference between patient and control group (p < 0.001). There was a significant association between D-Dimer levels and histological subtypes of NSCLC, pointing an elevated plasma D-dimer level in squamous cell cancer (p = 0.035). Patients with extensive stage SCLC exhibited evidently higher levels of D-Dimer, INR and PLT (p = 0.037, p = 0.042, p = 0.04, respectively). Prolongation of PT and INR had statistically significant adverse effect on survival (p = 0.05 and p = 0.014, respectively). Although prolonged aPTT and high levels of D-dimer was associated with worse survival, the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.117, p = 0.104). Multivariate analysis revealed INR as the sole independent prognostic variable among coagulation parameters (p = 0.05). In conclusion, elevation of PT and INR are associated with decreased survival in lung cancer patients.