Tumour Markers as Prognostic Aids in Prostatic Carcinoma

Abstract

Of 102 patients suffering from prostatic carcinoma, complete data on the serum concentration of 7 tumour markers were available from 90 patients, together with tumour grade, local stage and the presence or absence of skeletal metastases. The serum content of prostatic acid phosphatase, prostate specific antigen, neopterin, thymidine kinase, osteocalcin, C-reactive protein and tissue polypeptide antigen was measured. By means of Cox's regression and multivariate analysis the ability of these variables to predict prognosis, i.e. death from prostatic cancer, was studied. Neopterin appeared to be the most efficient marker, followed by tumour grade, thymidine kinase and prostate specific antigen. No other variable provided information of statistical significance. In multivariate analysis thymidine kinase performed best, followed by neopterin, tumour grade and prostate specific antigen. Several serum tumour markers reflect the biological activity of human prostate cancers and their value should be further explored. They may become useful in the management of individual patients.

The relationship between interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein in patients with benign and malignant prostate disease

“…There is also increasing evidence that the presence of a systemic inflammatory response, as evidenced by increased circulating concentrations of C-reactive protein, is associated with early recurrence and poor survival in a variety of common hormone-independent tumours (Neilsen et al, 2000;Scott et al, 2002;McMillan et al, 2003). There is also some evidence that a similar relationship exists in hormone-dependent tumours (Lewenhaupt et al, 1990;Albuquerque et al, 1995).…”

The relationship between tumour T-lymphocyte infiltration, the systemic inflammatory response and survival in patients undergoing curative resection for colorectal cancer

“…However, given that tumour lymphocytic infiltration parallels that of other inflammatory cells (Nielsen et al, 1999;Lin and Pollard, 2004) and that an elevated C-reactive protein is associated with poor outcome in all three tumours (Lewenhaupt et al, 1990;Blay et al, 1992;McMillan et al, 2003), it appears likely that the source of interleukin-6, the primary stimulus for the production of C-reactive protein, (Gabay and Kushner, 1999), differs in different tumours.…”

Clinical Value of Thymidine Kinase in Patients with Cervical Carcinoma

“…TK is activated in the G1/S phase of the cell cycle [2], and high TK activity has been reported in rapidly proliferating tissue, such as malignant cells, fetal hematopoietic cells, and some virus (including human papillomavirus)-infected cells [3, 4]. Clinical studies have reported serum and cytosolic TK levels in various human malignancies [4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]. The majority of these studies concerned hematologic malignancies [reviewed by ref.…”