Background
The metabolic or proliferative abnormalities characteristic of tumor cells can result in aberrant fibrinolysis or coagulation system activity, with certain tumors exhibiting hypercoagulability or existing in a fibrinolytic state. The utility of biomarkers of coagulation and fibrinolysis when seeking to differentiate between benign gallbladder disease and malignant gallbladder tumors, however, remains uncertain.
Methods
In total, 81 diagnosed with benign gallbladder hyperplasia and 94 patients diagnosed with benign gallbladder hyperplasia and malignant gallbladder tumors in this study. Pre-biopsy or pretreatment PIC, TAT, TM, and t-PAIC levels from these patients were analyzed, and correlations between these biomarkers and patient clinicopathological parameters were assessed. Age and data of four biomarkers were compared using Mann-Whitney tests and the diagnostic utility of these biomarkers when distinguishing between benign and malignant lesions was evaluated using ROC curves. Chi-square test was used to compare the frequencies.
Results
The average age of malignant group was higher than benign group. And the base line analysis showed that there was a statistic difference in age, history of smoking, drinking, biliary tract disease, BMI of over weight between benign and malignant groups. In patients with malignant gallbladder tumors, PIC, TAT, TM, and t-PAIC levels were significantly elevated relative to those in patients affected by gallbladder benign hyperplasia. The AUC for four biomarker combined diagnosed, PIC, TAT, TM, t-PAIC was 0.8859, 0.8455, 0.6554, 0.7130, and 0.6806. All these indices offered significant predictive utility, with four biomarker combined diagnosed and PIC exhibiting higher level of significance. TM was correlated with the vascular invasion of patients bearing tumors, and TAT, t-PAIC was correlated with the nerve invasion of patients bearing tumors.
Conclusions
Relative to patients affected by benign gallbladder hyperplasia, cholangiocarcinoma and gallbladder cancer patients presented with significantly higher plasma PIC, TAT, TM, and t-PAIC concentrations, with four biomarkers combined and PIC offering noteworthy diagnostic potential. These four markers could be used to some degree to aid in the differentiation between benign and malignant gallbladder conditions, and predicting the risk of vascular metastasis and nerve metastasis.