[Hemostasis and cancer]

It is well known that patients with neoplasms have a greater incidence of thrombosis and bleeding episodes. Many are the analytic alterations observed and there are many works on the possible pathophysiologic mechanisms which support them as well as their importance in the process of metastasis: fibrinolytic activation, tumor coagulability and aggregability; inflammatory-immune system; tumoral neovascularization and the liberation of specific tumor substances. This paper is a bibliographic review of the role of these mechanisms giving the best possible unified outlook.