ABSTRACT
The association between tumor/metastasis growth and fibrin formation has been proposed for many years, but clear proof of its pathogenetic relevance in the development of malignancy is very difficult to obtain. The reports on the occurrence of hemorrhagic/thrombotic complications in cancer patients and on histological evidence of tumor-associated fibrin deposition, the development of cell biology techniques to culture tumor cells and of biochemical knowledge on tumor cell-produced enzymes has opened new opportunities to approach this problem. The experimental model used was the Lewis lung carcinoma, a transplantable murine tumor which originally arose spontaneously in the lung of C57B16J mouse. The validity of the hypothesis is reinforced by the observation that a tumor, the mFS6 fibrosarcoma, in which the cancer cell procoagulant activity is of tissue thromboplastin type, is also refractory to the antimetastatic activity of warfarin.
