Beschreibung:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title>
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<jats:title>Learning Objectives</jats:title>
<jats:p>After completing this course, the reader will be able to: Describe the role of fibrinogen in coagulation and the inflammatory response and explain its importance in tumor proliferation, migration, and escape from immune regulation.Evaluate fibrinogen as a prognostic blood marker for survival and disease-free survival in patients with ovarian cancer.Incorporate fibrinogen testing as a relatively inexpensive, reliable, and available technique in the prognostic evaluation of ovarian cancer patients.</jats:p>
<jats:p>This article is available for continuing medical education credit at CME.TheOncologist.com</jats:p>
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<jats:title>Introduction.</jats:title>
<jats:p>To evaluate pretherapeutic plasma fibrinogen levels as a prognostic parameter in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC).</jats:p>
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<jats:title>Materials and Methods.</jats:title>
<jats:p>In the present multicenter study, pretherapeutic plasma fibrinogen levels were evaluated in 422 patients with EOC. Plasma fibrinogen levels were correlated with clinicopathological parameters and patient survival.</jats:p>
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<jats:title>Results.</jats:title>
<jats:p>The mean (standard deviation) pretherapeutic plasma fibrinogen level was 450.0 (150.1) mg/dl. Elevated plasma fibrinogen levels were associated with advanced tumor stage (p = .01) and the presence of a postoperative residual tumor mass (p &lt; .001), but not with histological grade (p = .1) and histological type (p = .8). In a multivariate Cox regression model, tumor stage (p &lt; .001 and p &lt; .001), postoperative residual tumor mass (p = .001 and p = .008), and plasma fibrinogen level (p &lt; .001 and p = .002), but not histological type (p = .8 and p = .2), patient age (p = .9 and p = .9), and serum cancer antigen 125 (p = 0.2 and p = 0.3) and C-reactive protein (p = .2 and p = .3) levels, were associated with disease-free and overall survival, respectively. Histological grade was associated with overall but not with disease-free survival (p = .01 and p = .8), respectively.</jats:p>
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<jats:title>Conclusions.</jats:title>
<jats:p>Pretherapeutic plasma fibrinogen levels can be used as an independent prognostic parameter in patients with EOC.</jats:p>
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