Relationship between preoperative plasma D-dimer level and the lymph-node metastasis characteristics in colorectal cancer patients

Objective To determine the relationship between preoperative plasma D-dimer level and the lymphnode metastasis characteristics in colorectal cancer patients.Methods A total of 106 patients with colorectal cancer were studied in order to evaluate this relationship.Their preoperative plasma D-dimer levels were measured.Results were correlated with the clinicopathological findings.Results Significantly different plasma D-dimer levels were found with respect to histologic N(P ＜ 0.001).The number of lymph node metastases was found to have the strongest association with D-dimer level among the significant clinicopathologic factors (Spearman rank correlation,P ＜0.001).The most useful cutoff of the plasma D-dimer levels for diagnosis of lymph node metastasis was determined to be 0.4 μg/mL.Conclusion Plasma D-dimer levels can help assess lymph node metastasis in patients with eophageal cancer and should be measured preoperatively. Key words: Colorectal cancer ;  D-dimer ;  The lymph-node metastasis ;