[Development of highly sensitive enzyme immunoassay to measure urinary beta-core fragment in patients with gynecological cancer].

In addition to human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) and its free subunits, low molecular weight hCG beta-related fragments have been previously demonstrated in pregnancy urine and in the urine of patients with trophoblastic and nontrophoblastic tumors. The urinary beta-core fragment in particular is focused on as a new tumor marker in gynecological malignancies. We developed an EIA for the beta-core fragment using the monoclonal antibody (MoAb229) which specifically recognized the core portion of hCG beta. By measuring with MoAb229-EIA, it was clearly revealed that urine obtained from normal pregnant women as well as from patients with choriocarcinoma and nontrophoblastic ovarian cancer contains a large amount of the beta-core fragment when separated on Sephadex G-100. We conclude that our MoAb229-EIA is a useful tool to use in detecting the beta-core fragment, a new tumor marker, in the urine of gynecological cancer patients.