Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To determine the coagulation abnormalities in patients with lung cancer.
STUDY DESIGN: Case-control study.
PLACE AND DURATION: Department of Pathology Isra University Hospital Hyderabad, Sindh –
Pakistan, and Department of Medicine Liaquat University of Medical & Health Sciences Jamshoro,
Sindh – Pakistan, from June 2006 to December 2007.
PATIENTS AND METHODS: Seventy subjects were recruited for the study by non-probability
convenient sampling technique. Forty freshly diagnosed histopathology proven lung cancer
patients were taken as cases, whereas 30 healthy subjects comprised the control group. Platelet
count (PLT) was done on hematology analyzer while prothrombin time (PT), activated partial
thromboplastin time (APTT) and plasma D-dimer tests were performed by commercially available
kits at Department of Pathology, Isra University Hospital Hyderabad, Sindh – Pakistan. Ttest
was applied to determine the significance of differences between two groups whereas Pvalue
up to .05 was taken as significant.
RESULTS: The mean±SD PLT in cases and controls was 394±170 and 216±73 respectively. The
mean±SD values for these respective groups were for PT 14.7±0.5 and 12.6±0.4, for APTT
41.5±6.2 and 25.8±3.7. D-dimer levels were

Key words: Coagulation abnormalities, lung cancer, D-dimer, platelet count, prothrombin time, activated partial thromboplastin time.