Anticoagulant therapy represents a potentially attractive anticancer strategy to moderate thrombosis and cancer spread, given the bidirectional relationship between hemostasis and malignancy.
Does anticoagulant therapy moderate thrombosis and cancer spread in patients with malignancy?
This review highlights the potential of anticoagulant therapy as an anticancer strategy by targeting the prothrombotic mechanisms that facilitate tumor growth and metastasis.
The relationship between hemostasis and malignancy is well recognized, with both elements interacting in a "vicious cycle" where cancers overexpress procoagulants and thrombin, which in turn promote both prothrombotic potential and tumor growth, invasion, and spread. Indeed, venous thromboembolism, particularly idiopathic venous thrombosis, occurs frequently as a paraneoplastic phenomenon, and in turn several components of primary and secondary hemostasis (namely platelets, tissue factor, and thrombin) play an important role in primary tumor growth and metastasization. Despite the many and various mechanisms involved in this multifaceted relationship, anticoagulants might represent an attractive anticancer therapy, in that current research supports the hypothesis that such drugs may offer a better control of cancer progression. The main biological and clinical evidence on the relationship between cancer and hemostasis are briefly summarized in this review, as is the potential benefits of anticoagulant therapy in this setting.
Franchini et al. (Thu,) conducted a review in Cancer and thrombosis. Anticoagulant therapy was evaluated. Anticoagulant therapy represents a potentially attractive anticancer strategy to moderate thrombosis and cancer spread, given the bidirectional relationship between hemostasis and malignancy.