Urinary hexosaminidase in patients with lung carcinoma

✍ Scribed by M. G. Brattain; P. M. Kimball; J. R. Durant; T. G. Pretlow II; D. Smith; J. Carpenter; M. Marks

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1979
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 485 KB
• Volume: 44
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-543X
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-0142(197912)44:6<2267::aid-cncr2820440640>3.0.co;2-m

✦ Synopsis

The specific activity of urinary hexosaminidase was determined in 58 patients with various histological types of lung carcinoma, Compared to an apparently healthy control population, 32/35 patients with widely disseminated disease showed elevated values and 18/23 patients with disease confined to the chest had normal hexosaminidase values. Detailed studies of 18 patients indicated that declining hexosaminidase values were associated with effective therapy, rising values generally accompanied progressive disease.

Cancer 442267-2272, 1979.

B IOCHEMICAL AND IMMUNOCHEMICAL TU- MOR MARKERS are of potential importance in the diagnosis and-management of cancers. The assay of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), for example, is essential to the proper clinical management of choriocarcinoma in females' and both the measurement of HCG and alphafetoprotein are invaluable in the treatment of testicular germ cell n e o p l a s m ~. ~* ~. ~ Although some advances have been made in the development of useful markers for other carcinomas, satisfactory laboratory adjuncts are generally lacking for lung carcinomas." These are becoming important because of the recent developments of effective therapeutic regimens for lung cancer (particularly oat cell) and the difficulty in assessing objective responses in these patients.

Recent investigations have indicated that the detection of elevated levels of substances in the urine of cancer patients, such as poly-aminesI4 or the lysosomal enzyme, arylsul-fatase13 are of potential use as tumor markers. Other studies have suggested that Nacetyl hexosaminidase (either total activity or that of particular isozymes) may be elevated in various animal and human turn or^.^^^^"s ~1 1 ~1 5 Hexosaminidase degrades molecules