Investigation on serum neurone-specific enolase in prostate cancer diagnosis and monitoring: comparative study of a multiple tumor marker assay.

A quadruple tumor marker serotest assay (neurone-specific enolase, NSE, prostate-specific antigen, PSA, prostatic acid phosphatase, PAP, and carcino-embryonic antigen, CEA) was performed on sera from both 63 patients with untreated prostate cancer and 135 patients treated with orchiectomy, flutamide, diethylstilbestrol (DES), cyproterone acetate (CPA), and Estracyt. In untreated patients with local tumor elevated blood NSE concentrations were found more frequently (10/35, 28.6%) than in untreated subjects with disseminated disease (3/28, 10.7%). Elevated NSE values were measured more frequently in nonresponders to therapy 10/46 (21.7%), than in responders during prostate cancer partial remission (2/89, 2.2%). In none of NSE-positive neoplasms a small cell prostate cancer has been histologically detected. Many of NSE-positive tumors are also closely associated with elevated blood CEA values. The applied anticancer drugs were inefficient in the normalization of neither one from the pair of elevated NSE and CEA concentrations (regardless of the numerical values of the other two markers, PSA and PAP), but their values were found to decline occasionally only after surgical treatment. In patients with raised PSA, PAP, and CEA levels but with a normal NSE value, the application of the same treatment strategies was in the most of subjects sufficient to provoke either temporary or even lasting tumor response to therapy. Hence, it appears that the assessment of the NSE serotest, despite its minimal value in the overall tumor staging and monitoring, might furnish the decision-making step related to the treatment of aggressive prostate cancer with an additional and powerful tool.