Pretreatment plasma fibrinogen level correlates with tumor progression and metastasis in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus.
BACKGROUND
Hypercoagulation has been reported to be associated with tumor progression and a poor prognosis in various carcinomas. In this study, we examined fibrinogen levels in pretreated patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) and assessed its correlation with clinicopathological factors and prognosis in patients with ESCC.


METHODS
Pretreatment fibrinogen levels were examined prior to surgery or other treatments (e.g. endoscopic mucosal resection and chemoradiotherapy [CRT]) in 105 patients with primary ESCC. We investigated the association of fibrinogen levels with clinicopathological background factors and the survival of ESCC patients.


RESULTS
The plasma fibrinogen concentration (PFC) ranged from 209.4 to 781.6 mg/dL. Pretreatment PFC correlated significantly with the depth of invasion (T factor). There also existed a significant correlation between higher fibrinogen levels and lymph node metastasis (N factor) and distant organ metastasis. Patients with a higher fibrinogen level experienced a significantly worse overall survival (P = 0.006). Fibrinogen levels strongly correlated with platelet counts, white blood cell counts and tumor length. Pretreatment PFC were observed to have a significant correlation with CRT responsiveness in ESCC patients in stages II and III (P = 0.005).


CONCLUSIONS
This study revealed that higher levels of fibrinogen correlated with tumor progression, metastasis and poor responsiveness to CRT in ESCC patients.
Takeuchi
Hiroya
H
Department of Surgery, National Tokyo Medical Center, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, Japan. hiroyatakeuchi@aol.com
Ikeuchi
Shunji
S
Kitagawa
Yuko
Y
Shimada
Atsushi
A
Oishi
Takashi
T
Isobe
Yoh
Y
Kubochi
Kiyoshi
K
Kitajima
Masaki
M
Matsumoto
Sumio
S
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001772:Blood Cell Count; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000097:blood* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy; D018450:Disease Progression; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000097:blood* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy; D005260:Female; D005340:Fibrinogen / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D012044:Regression Analysis; D015996:Survival Rate
D005340:Fibrinogen