Serum samples should not be used to assess circulating matrix metalloproteinase-9 levels as a prognostic marker of disease

✍ Scribed by Jose E. Tanus-Santos; Raquel F. Gerlach

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: French
• Weight: 36 KB
• Volume: 118
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0020-7136
• DOI: 10.1002/ijc.21405

✦ Synopsis

Ruokolainen et al. 1 have suggested recently that pretreatment serum matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-9 levels could be of prognostic value in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. In addition, they have found that patients with high serum levels of MMP-9 had a 2-fold risk of dying compared with patients with low serum MMP-9 levels. 1 There is evidence, however, indicating that these conclusions based on serum MMP-9 measurements may be limited by methodological issues. Importantly, measurement of MMP-9 levels in serum have been reported as artificially high compared with the results obtained from plasma samples. [2][3][4][5] In addition, although a high correlation has been described between MMP-