Abstract

In the course of systematic research into the coagulative properties of cancers, facts of wider implication on the behaviour of fatty acids in relation to clotting have been uncovered. It has been shown that saturated fatty acids of appropriate chain length have a direct inhibitory effect on tissue thromboplastins with an optimum of 14 carbon atoms. Unsaturated fatty acids have a similar, though more marked, inhibitory activity with an optimum chain length of 16 carbon atoms. The inhibitory activity is reduced by combining the acids with human serum albumin. Certain fatty acids when dissolved in human serum albumin form labile thromboplastins with properties corresponding to those found in human cancers and in chorion.