Nowadays, increasing attention has been focused on relation between increased D-dimer levels and cancer among patients without detectable thrombosis. was to measure plasma D-dimer levels in portal and peripheral blood in pancreatic cancer patients with absence of venous thromboembolism. Material and methods. Fifteen consecutive patients hospitalized in the Department of General and Transplant Surgery of Medical University in Łódź, from January to March 2012 who underwent surgery due to a pancreatic cancer were enrolled. At laparotomy, portal and peripheral blood were sampled concurrently. D-dimer and fibrinogen levels were measured. Moreover, to investigate overall coagulation function prothrombin time (PT), prothrombin index (PI), international normalized ratio (INR), thrombin time (TT), activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT), TT and APTT index were evaluated. Results. Peripheral plasma D-dimmer levels above normal range were found in 10/15 patients (66,67%), whereas D-dimer above normal values were confirmed in all portal blood samples. Mean D-dimer values were higher in portal than in peripheral blood (3279.37 vs 824.64, by 297%, p=0,025). These discrepancies were accompanied by normal limits of portal and peripheral levels of fibrinogen and comparable coagulation function indexes. Conclusion. Our preliminary study showed the close relation between activation of hemostasis, reflected by elevated D-dimers in portal blood and presence of pancreatic cancer. These data suggest that measurement of portal blood D-dimer levels may be a potentially useful technique for screening the pancreatic cancer.
The present study was undertaken to contribute to the characterization of the degree of variability in baseline damage in white blood cells from control population, and to investigate how this variability is associated with external and internal factors. Altogether 170 healthy volunteers, randomly selected from the general population of the Republic of Croatia, participated in the study. Two sensitive tests: the alkaline comet assay and the chromosome aberration test were applied to study the background levels of DNA damage in their white blood cells. The results point to inter-individual differences, indicating different genome sensitivity. As revealed by both assays, the background levels of DNA damage were mostly influenced by smoking habit as well as medical exposure (especially to diagnostic X-rays). Sex and age of subjects did not significantly influence the values of DNA damage recorded in the white blood cells. Although higher levels of DNA damage were recorded in blood samples collected during winter and autumn, they were mostly influenced by medicinal exposure and smoking habit. Statistical evaluation of the data confirmed that a positive correlation exists between DNA migration and the number of long-tailed nuclei found with the comet assay and the total number of chromosome aberrations. The data obtained can serve as control values in forthcoming biomonitoring studies.
Bone marrow transplantation dates back to the ‘50s, but greatest progress in this therapeutic modality applied successfully in the treatment of several conditions took place mostly during the past 25 years. Among all organ transplantations, bone marrow transplants are second only to kidney transplants. In Poland this therapeutic technique also undergoes a rapid development. During the past 10 years, absolute numbers of various forms of transplantation increased 100-fold, starting from 6 procedures in 1989 to over 700 at present. Essentially, the term bone marrow transplantation (BMT), present in names of international associations and registers, is in fact a colloquialism (e.g. European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation). A much more appropriate term would be hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). This is because progenitor cells for transplantation may be obtained not only from bone marrow, but also from peripheral blood and umbilical cord blood. The term hematopoietic cell transplantation has a much broader meaning and includes: classic transplantation of bone marrow obtained at surgery, transplantation of peripheral blood stem cells (PBSCT) and umbilical cord blood-derived stem cells. All hematopoietic stem cells express on their surface the CD34+ antigen and glycosylated transmembrane protein, a member of the family of adhesion molecules. In healthy persons, expression of this antigen in bone marrow cells is at the level of 1-3%, while in peripheral blood – 0.01-0.1%, and in umbilical cord blood – 0.1-0.4%. The first source (transplantation material) of hematopoietic progenitor cells was bone marrow, while transplantation of stem cells obtained from peripheral blood and umbilical cord blood started much later (during the ‘80s of the past century).
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