title: Plasma fibrinogen and blood platelet counts are associated with response to neoadjuvant therapy in esophageal cancer.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate coagulatory factors in predicting response to neoadjuvant therapy (NeoTr) in esophageal cancer (EC).
  
  
  METHODS
  We investigated the relevance of coagulatory factors in 84 EC patients (56 adenocarcinomas, 28 squamous cell cancer) who received NeoTr. Plasma fibrinogen (PFR), peripheral blood platelet counts (PBPC) and C-reactive protein (CRP) were determined before NeoTr. Response was classified as tumor regression grades.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Patients with good response to NeoTr had significantly higher PFR (p = 0.006), CRP (p = 0.002) and PBPC levels (p = 0.034) when compared with others. Only, PFR remained an independent factor influencing tumor regression (p = 0.0064, coefficient of regression: -0.003). No association with survival was observed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  PFR and to a lesser extent PBPC and CRP might be considered as a predictive marker for the response to NeoTr in EC.
authors: Department of Medicine I, Clinical Division of Oncology, Medical University of Vienna, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors: Aysegül
authors: A
authors: Ilhan-Mutlu
authors: Patrick
authors: P
authors: Starlinger
authors: Thomas
authors: T
authors: Perkmann
authors: Sebastian F
authors: SF
authors: Schoppmann
authors: Matthias
authors: M
authors: Preusser
authors: Peter
authors: P
authors: Birner
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000097:blood / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000097:blood / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000097:blood* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D005340:Fibrinogen / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D020360:Neoadjuvant Therapy; D060787:Neoplasm Grading; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D010976:Platelet Count; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D005340:Fibrinogen
keywords: CRP; esophageal carcinoma; neoadjuvant treatment; plasma fibrinogen; platelets; tumor regression grade