A study to develop a device to help doctors understand more about blood clots in people with cancer

Cancer type:

Ovarian cancer

Status:

Results

Phase:

Other

This study was done to collect tissue samples and help develop a device that can give information about the cause of blood clots.

More about this trial

Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is a blood clot that develops in the deep veins of the body. It is also sometimes called venous thromboembolism (VTE). Most blood clots can be treated, but they can be very serious if not.

We know that people with cancer have a higher risk of blood clots. This may be caused by the cancer itself, or by treatment such as chemotherapy or surgery.

This study was done to collect blood and tissue samples from women with ovarian cancer. The research team planned to use these samples to develop a way to find out more about what affects people’s risk of blood clots.

The aim of this study was to develop a device to help doctors look at tissue samples, and find out more about how and why blood clots develop.

Summary of results

The research team developed a device to help analyse tissue samples and assess the risk of blood clots.

This study was open for people to join between 2013 and 2014, and the research team reported the results later in 2014.

Results

The research team looked at blood and tissue samples of 20 women who had been recently diagnosed with ovarian cancer. They were all due to have surgery.

The researchers put the cancer tissue in a special fluid on a device in the laboratory, so they could analyse it. Sometimes tissue samples don’t survive very long in the lab, so researchers don’t have long to do their analysis. But the team developed a device which meant they could analyse it for up to about a week (160 hours).

The analysis showed that when the researchers added chemotherapy to the cancer tissue, some of it had higher amounts of a substance that makes blood clot more quickly. And the blood samples from these patients were also more likely to clot more quickly.

Conclusion

The research team were able to develop a device to help analyse cancer tissue and assess the risk of clotting. They hope this will be useful for looking at the link between chemotherapy and the risk of blood clots.

Where this information comes from

We have based this summary on information from the research team. The information they sent us has been reviewed by independent specialists (peer reviewed Open a glossary item

) and published in a medical journal. The figures we quote above were provided by the trial team who did the research. We have not analysed the data ourselves.