Association of thrombosis-inducing activity (TIA) with fatal hypercoagulable complications in patients with lung cancer.

We previously reported that thrombosis-inducing activity (TIA) is present in plasma from patients with advanced lung cancer. Of 73 patients with non-small cell lung cancer, stages IIIb and IV, 41 (56 percent) had such activity in plasma. The median survival time was significantly shorter in the TIA-positive vs the TIA-negative group. When 34 of those 73 patients who had died at Kyushu University Hospital were evaluated for the incidence of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) and adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), they were significantly higher in the TIA positive group (p < 0.05). The DIC occurred in 7 of 20 patients positive for TIA and 5 died of ARDS. In contrast, in the 14 TIA-negative subjects, only 1 patients experienced DIC and none died of ARDS. Peripheral platelet counts, which had been rather elevated on the day of hospital admission, were below normal within 1 week of death in 40 percent of the 20 patients who were positive for TIA. These observations suggest that TIA may be responsible at least in part for the increased activity of the coagulation system and the high incidence of DIC and ARDS in patients with advanced lung cancer.