Altered coagulability: an aid to selective breast biopsy.

Difficulty in discriminating nonadvanced breast cancer from benign breast disease results in many cancer negative biopsies. Development of a test to better differentiate between these two entities to reduce the number of cancer negative biopsies was the purpose of this blind study. The clue that prompted the development of this test resides in the state of hypercoagulability in cancer. Hypercoagulability can be measured by assessing tissue factor-mediated altered coagulability. The amount of tissue factor release is contingent on prior activation of the monocyte (the only blood cell that generates tissue factor) in vivo.