Plasma Levels of Tissue Factor Antigen in Patients with Non-Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus

ABSTRACT

Patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) are associated with an increased risk of thrombosis, and are susceptible to a series of complications including nephropathy. It has also been known that plasma tissue factor (TF) antigen levels increase significantly in certain disease states. To investigate the clinical significance of an association with the various complications in patients with type 2 non-insulin-dependent DM (NIDDM), we measured the plasma levels of TF antigen in 63 patients (35 males and 28 females, mean age 60.8 yrs) with NIDDM and in 22 normal subjects (14 males and 8 females, mean age 56.0 yrs). The mean concentrations of TF were higher for patients with NIDDM (253.7 +/- 144.9 pg/ml) than in normal subjects (187.3 +/- 108.7 pg/ml with marginal statistical significance (p= 0.0530). The TF levels were higher for patients with a nephropathy than for patients without a nephropathy (p=0.0402). There was a significant positive correlation between levels of TF and BUN (r=0.84, p < 0.0001) or creatinine (r=0.93, p < 0.0001). However, TF levels were found to be similar for both groups with and without thrombosis, neuropathy, retinopathy, or infection. These results suggest that plasma TF antigen levels may be associated with nephropathy and they may reflect a renal dysfunction in NIDDM.