Gender-Specific Coagulation Profiles of Peripheral and Portal Blood May Help to Differentiate Malignant from Benign Pancreatic Tumour—Pilot Study

Abstract

Objective: Pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PDAC) and mass forming chronic pancreatitis (CP) can be easily misdiagnosed due to their resemblances in clinical, radiological, and biochemical criteria. In our previous study, we reported a very high concentration of D-Dimers in portal blood in patients with pancreatic cancer which may help to differentiate malignant from benign pancreatic tumours. In this study, we aim to describe other portal and peripheral coagulation profiles of PDAC in comparison to CP patients, as well to test the hypothesis; thus, it is possible to distinguish pancreatic malignancy and benign tumour based on these parameters. Methods: We included retrospectively 115 patients with the absence of venous thromboembolism (VTE), qualified to surgical treatment due to pancreatic tumours, both PDAC and CP. Patients underwent surgery in General and Transplant Surgery Unit of Medical University of Lodz between December 2011 and February 2014. Patients with distant metastases diagnosed before or during the surgery were excluded. The coagulation profile, which includes fibrinogen, activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT), prothrombin time (PT), and thrombin time (TT), was determined in blood samples from the portal and peripheral vein taken intraoperatively. Results: The fibrinogen level was higher and the aPTT index shortened in the peripheral and portal blood of the PDAC group, which reflects the well-known link between PDAC and general hypercoagulability. Furthermore, these effects are sex-specific. The mean age in the CP group was lower than in the PDAC group (54.63 ± 12.37 vs. 63.77 ± 3.23, p < 0.001) and correlated with the fibrinogen distribution in male patients with CP (portal r = 0.34; p = 0.07; peripheral r = 0.39; p = 0.04). We calculated sex-specific logistic regression models (male: peripheral aPTT and age, AUC: 0.795, female: portal fibrinogen and age, AUC: 0.805), both maintaining the good discrimination properties after V-fold cross validation (0.759, 0.742). Conclusions: Our study shows that the differences between coagulation profiles in PDAC and CP patients not only seems to be a reflection of gender-specific biological features, but also helps to discriminate between them. The main goal of the study was to explore the biology of pancreatic cancer and lay a solid base for further investigations of PDAC biomarkers. This paper is the first to describe the detailed coagulation profile in portal blood in patients with pancreatic solid tumors. At present, the clinical application of our results is not clear; however, we hope that it may improve our understanding of this complex disease.