[Usefulness of determining 2 cell membrane enzymes in bronchial aspirate and lung tissue in patients with cancer of the lung].

The cell membrane enzymes, Alkaline Phosphatase and Gamma Glutamyl Transferase, have been studied in lung aspirates from healthy subjects and lung cancer patients. These enzymes were studied, in the latter, both in healthy and in neoplastic tissue. The enzymatic activity both in the lung aspirate and in the neoplastic tissue was significantly lower in poorly differentiated cancers when compared to well or moderately differentiated tumors. Similarly, analysis revealed that there was a statistically significant decrease in the activity of both enzymes in lung aspirates from patients with bronchogenic tumors when compared to healthy controls. The results obtained in this present work, together with the easiness of obtaining a lung aspirate suggest that these enzymes should be determined in order to obtain further information about the histological origin of lung cancer. These enzymatic changes could be explained with the "fatalism" theory for neoplastic tissue as we explain in this work.