Plasma thrombomodulin levels in lung cancer patients.
BACKGROUND
Thrombomodulin (TM) is a glycoprotein and besides its anticoagulant property it is accepted as an onco developmental antigen. Considering these properties we hypothesised that active TMB might have a role in cancer cell behaviour.


METHODS
We measured serum TMB levels by the enzyme immunoassay method in 40 patients with lung cancer and 20 healthy subjects.


RESULTS
TMB levels were found as 54.6 +/- 11.5 in controls and 60.9 +/- 31.2 ng/ml in lung cancer patients TM levels were 59.4 +/- 24.2 ng/ml in 24 epidermoid carcinoma patients, 65 +/- 50.2 ng/ml in 10 small cell carcinoma patients and 60 +/- 18.4 ng/ml in 6 adenocarcinoma patients. Patients with stage 4 and distant metastasis had a value of 65 +/- 33.9 ng/ml. No significant differences were found between healthy subjects and cancer patients. Also the differences between 3 groups of patients were insignificant.


CONCLUSIONS
It was concluded that serum TMB levels could not be accepted as a tumour marker in lung cancer patients.
Yilmaz
T
T
PTT Hospital, Chest Diseases Department, Istanbul, Turkey.
Akman
M
M
Tutluoğlu
B
B
Afrasyap
L
L
Göylüsün
V
V
Celik
N
N
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000097:blood*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000097:blood*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018180:Thrombomodulin / Q000097:blood*
D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D018180:Thrombomodulin