INVESTIGATION ON COAGULATION ACTIVITY, ITS INHIBITORS, AND FIBRINOLYSIS IN PATIENTS WITH COLORECTAL CANCER
M. Szczepanski1, M. Nowacki2, M. Chwalinski2, J. Elbanowski3, M. Klukowski4, K. Grel5
1Department of Clinical Biochemistry, 3Department of Biophysics and Biomathematics, 4Department of Surgery, Medical Center of Postgraduate Education, 01-813 Warsaw, Poland 2Department of Colorectal Cancer, The Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Center and Institute of Oncology, Warsaw, Poland 5Blood Bank, Postgraduate Teaching Hospital, 00-416 Warsaw, Poland
Abstract. There are reports on the activation of coagulation system in cancer patients and it could be expected that this activation is accompanied by the consumption and decline of coagulation inhibitors. The levels of these inhibitors — antithrombin (AT), protein C (PC) and free tissue factor pathway inhibitor (fTFPI) — were estimated as well as the complexes of thrombin and plasmin with their specific inhibitors, antithrombin and a2-antiplasmin (TAT and PAP) in the blood plasma of patients with colorectal cancer and healthy donors. We have not found significant differences of AT, fTFPI and TAT antigens levels between the cancer patients and normal subjects. Protein C and plasmin — a2-antiplasmin antigens levels were increased in cancer patients as compared to the individuals of the control group but no significant differences in these variables were found among the patients with colorectal cancer enlisted to the different subgroups of Dukes classification. We were not able to find a convincing explanation for the rise of protein C antigen in cancer patients. The elevated level of plasmin in our patients is probably related to the increased production of urokinase-type plasminogen activator by the cells of colorectal carcinoma, as reported by others, and it warrants the classification of colorectal cancer as a type II class malignant tumor according to Zacharski et al (1992).
