Serum glycoprotein hormone alpha subunit levels in patients with cancer

Abstract

The serum glycoprotein hormone alpha subunit concentration was measured in 957 nonpregnant patients with benign disorders and 683 patients with unselected malignancies. Postmenopausal women had significantly higher alpha levels than premenopausal women or men. When the patients were subdivided according to age, sex or disease sites, significant population differences were found for women less than 50 years of age and patients with cancers of presumed neural crest origin. However, individual serum alpha levels in patients with benign disorders or malignancies demonstrated considerable overlap. No population differences in serum alpha concentrations were demonstrated between patients grouped according to stage of disease, suggesting that serum alpha were not directly related to tumor burden. Similarly, there was no statistical association between clinical improvement or deterioration and change in the serum alpha subunit concentration. These results indicate that measurement of the glycoprotein hormone alpha subunit concentration in the serum is not useful for screening patients for cancer or for monitoring the clinical course of patients with the vast majority of cancers.

Human choriogonadotrophin protein core and sugar branches heterogeneity: basic and clinical insights

“…About 10 -20% of the patients with testicular cancer have elevated serum levels of hCGa and individuals with tumor carcinoids show even a much higher hCGa concentration (Alfthan and Stenman, 1996). Because it is produced in high levels, the measurement of hCGa can be useful for early detection of tumors in pituitary, lung, testes, insulinomas and gastric or pancreatic carcinoid (Braunstein et al, 1979). At least in a lung tumor cell line, hCGa seems to exert a paracrine growth-stimulating function (Rivera et al, 1989).…”

Secretion of Alpha-Subunit and Intact Gonadotropins after Surgical and Chemical Castration

“…While pituitary cells predominantly secrete the complete hormones, they are also able to secrete the free-subunits, particularly the alpha subunit (Gurr and Kourides 1984). Plasma concentrations of alpha subunit have been studied in many physiological (Styne, Kaplan and Grumbach 1980;Hagen 1977) and pathological conditions, including pituitary tumors (Kourides, Weintraub, Rosen, Ridgway, Kliman and Maloof 1976;Kourides, Ridgway, Weintraub, Bigos, Gershengorn and Maloof 1977), thyroid disease (Kourides, Weintraub, Ridgway and Maloof 1975) and gonadal diseases (Winters and Troen 1985), systemic tumors (Braunstein, Forsythe, Rasor, Van Scoy-Mosher, Thompson and Wade 1979) and uremia (Blackman, Weintraub, Kourides, Solano, Santner and Rosen 1981). Since the regulatory mechanisms involved in the secretion of these glycoproteins have not been completely elucidated, we studied the secretion of LH, FSH and alpha-subunit under three different conditions of low testosterone output: a) surgical castration, characterized by the complete absence of the testicular negative feedback on the pituitary; b) chemical castration induced by ketoconazole, an inhibitor of steroidogenesis; and c) chemical castration induced by LHRH analog treatment, which acts primarily at the level of the pituitary.…”

Serum glycoprotein hormone α subunit, hormone receptors and disease stage in patients with breast cancer

“…Only one of these 6 benign patients had gonadotrophin levels compatible with recent ovulation. Recently other grouips have also documented increases in a levels in benign as well as malignant conditions (Dosogne-Guerin et al, 1978;Braunstein et al, 1979). These observations are at variance with results of a study of patients with pancreatic islet-cell tumours, in which serum of subunit was high only in malignant tumours, and normal in benign cases (Kahn et al, 1977).…”

“…Increased concentrations of oa subunit have been found in the serum of persons with various benign and malignant conditions (Dosogne-Guerin et al, 1978;Braunstein et al, 1979) and we report here a study of serum a subunit levels in a large consecutive series of patients presenting with primary breast cancer, and compare them with oa subunit levels in patients with benign breast disease and a normal control population. In order to define the importance of serum oa subunit measurement in our breast-cancer patients, we have correlated oa levels with the tumour hormonereceptor status and disease stage at removal of the primary tumour, both factors known to influence patient survival (Say & Donegan, 1974;Hahnel et al, 1979 Controls.-112 female blood donors and healthy female hospital personnel served as controls.…”