-diacetylspermine (DiAcSpm) in the urine of colorectal and breast cancer patients was examined to establish its usefulness as a novel diagnostic tool for detecting these cancers at clinically early stages. Experimental Design: Urine samples from 248 colon cancer patients and 83 breast cancer patients as well as 51patients with benign gastrointestinal diseases treated inTokyo Metropolitan Komagome Hospital during the period of August1999 toJanuary 2004 were collected. DiAcSpm was analyzed by ELISA and its sensitivity for malignant conditions was compared with that of serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), CA19-9, and CA15-3. Results: The sensitivity of urinary DiAcSpm for colon cancer patients (n = 248) was 75.8% (mean F 2 SD for 52 healthy controls as a cutoff value), which was markedly higher than the sensitivities of serum CEA (39.5%, P < 0.0001) and CA19-9 (14.1%, P < 0.0001). DiAcSpm was elevated in 60% of tumor-node-metastasis cancer stage 0 + I patients, whereas only 10% (P < 0.0001) and 5% (P < 0.0001) of these patients were CEA-and CA19-9^positive, respectively.The sensitivity of urinary DiAcSpm for 83 cases of breast cancer (60.2%) was higher than the sensitivities of CEA (37.3%, P = 0.0032) and CA15-3 (37.3%, P = 0.0032). DiAcSpm was elevated in 28% of tumor-node-metastasis stage I + II patients, whereas only 3% (P = 0.0064) and 0% (P = 0.001) of these patients were CEA-and CA15-3^positive, respectively. Conclusion:The observations indicate that urinary DiAcSpm is a more sensitive marker than CEA, CA19-9, and CA15-3 and that it can efficiently detect colorectal and breast cancers at early stages.We reported previously that N 1 ,N 12 -diacetylspermine (DiAcSpm) is excreted in the urine of healthy persons, with small individual variations in the amount (1). We devised a high-performance liquid chromatography separation system connected to an in-line enzymatic detection system for DiAcSpm and carried out precise analyses of urinary DiAcSpm in healthy persons as well as patients with malignant diseases.Our analysis revealed that DiAcSpm may be useful as a novel diagnostic and prognostic tumor marker in that its excretion in urine is elevated significantly and frequently in patients with urogenital malignancies and tends to recover to the normal level on remission (2, 3). At the same time, we noted that monoacetylpolyamines that constitute a major part of urinary polyamines, including N-acetylputrescine, N 1 -acetylspermidine, and N 8 -acetylspermidine, were much less sensitive as markers for these urogenital malignancies than DiAcSpm and could not be considered practical tumor markers. The part of our observations concerning conventional monoacetylpolyamines was very well in accord with the popular evaluation of urinary polyamines at that time (4), but our results on DiAcSpm analysis were radically different from those on other polyamine derivatives and looked highly promising (2, 3).Although the biochemistry and clinical chemistry of DiAcSpm remain largely obscure at present because of the lack of intensiv...

(18)F-Fluoride PET or PET/CT has excellent diagnostic performance for the detection of metastatic bone tumor, but the estimated effective dose and average cost-effective ratio are at a disadvantage compared with BS planar or BS planar and SPECT.

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Pattern formation of a step on a growing crystal surface induced by a straight line source of atoms, which is escaping from the step at a velocity V(p), is studied with the use of a phase field model. From a straight step, fluctuations of the most unstable wavelength λ(max) grow. Competition of intrusions leads to coarsening of the pattern, and survived intrusions grow exponentially. With sufficient strength of the crystal anisotropy, a regular comblike pattern appears. This peculiar step pattern is similar to that observed on a Ga-deposited Si(111) surface. The final period of the intrusions, Λ, is determined when the exponential growth ends. The period depends on the strength F(u) of a current noise in diffusion as Λ∼λ(max)|lnF(u)|: such a logarithmic dependence is confirmed for the first time. A nonmonotonic V(p) dependence of Λ indicates that the comblike pattern with a small V(p) is related to an unstable growth mode of the free needle growth in a channel. The pattern is stabilized by the guiding linear source.

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