Coagulation parameters in lung cancer patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Hypercoagulability in lung cancer patients is associated with a high incidence of mortality and morbidity in the world. Therefore, this meta-analysis aimed to explore the correlation of the basic coagulation abnormalities in lung cancer patients compared with the control.

PubMed, Scopus, and other sources were employed to identify eligible studies. The outcome variable was expressed using mean ± standard deviation (SD). Heterogeneity among studies and publication bias were evaluated. The quality of included studies was also assessed based on Newcastle-Ottawa Scale checklist.

Finally, through a total of eight studies, prolonged prothrombin time (PT; standard mean difference [SMD]: 1.29; 95% CI: 0.47-2.11), plasma D-dimer value (SMD 3.10; 95% CI 2.08-4.12), fibrinogen (SMD 2.18; 95% CI:1.30-3.06), and platelet (PLT) count (SMD 1.00; 95% CI 0.84-1.16) were significantly higher in lung cancer patients when compared with the control group. The single-arm meta-analysis also showed that compared with control, lung cancer patients had high pooled PT 13.7 (95% CI:12.2-15.58) versus 11.79 (95% CI = 10.56-13.02), high D-dimer 275.99 (95% CI:172.9-11735.9) versus 0.2 (95% CI:0.20-0.37), high plasma fibrinogen 5.50 (95% CI:4.21-6.79) versus 2.5 (95% CI:2.04-2.91), and high PLT count 342.3 (95% CI:236.1-448.5) versus 206.6 (95% CI:176.4-236.7).

In conclusion, almost all the coagulation abnormalities were closely associated with lung cancer, and hence coagulation indexes provide an urgent clue for early diagnosis and timely management.