Gilbert F, Walop W, Chan J S, Benjannet S, Seidah N G, Spitzer W O, Chrétien M
Laboratory of Biochemical, Clinical Research Institute of Montreal, Canada.
Clin Invest Med. 1987 Sep;10(5):372-6.
In an epidemiological study, we evaluated the human amino-terminal portion (IR-hNT) of pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) as a biomarker for lung cancer by measuring it by radioimmunoassay in the plasma of 180 patients with various histological types of pulmonary carcinoma. Seventy-seven patients with other cancers or benign lung disorders were our controls. An elevated IR-hNT level was measured in 12 percent of the lung neoplasm cases (22% in small-cell carcinoma) and in only 6 percent of the controls. The mean level in the lung cancer group was also higher than in the controls (p = 0.004), while it was higher in patients with small-cell carcinoma than in those with squamous-cell and adenocarcinoma (p = 0.013 and 0.002, respectively). Otherwise, we demonstrated a correlation between IR-hNT levels and altered liver function only in patients with a lung malignancy (p varying between 0.015 and less than 0.001). Finally, survival analysis failed to show that IR-hNT has a prognostic value when measured at the onset of lung cancer. These results allow us to conclude that IR-hNT, although not very sensitive in screening for carcinoma of the lung, may indicate the presence of liver metastases in this disease.
在一项流行病学研究中，我们通过放射免疫分析法测量了180例不同组织学类型肺癌患者血浆中阿黑皮素原（POMC）的人氨基末端部分（IR-hNT），以评估其作为肺癌生物标志物的价值。77例患有其他癌症或肺部良性疾病的患者作为我们的对照。在12%的肺癌病例（小细胞癌中为22%）中检测到IR-hNT水平升高，而在对照组中仅为6%。肺癌组的平均水平也高于对照组（p = 0.004），而小细胞癌患者的水平高于鳞状细胞癌和腺癌患者（分别为p = 0.013和0.002）。此外，我们仅在患有肺部恶性肿瘤的患者中发现IR-hNT水平与肝功能改变之间存在相关性（p值在0.015至小于0.001之间）。最后，生存分析未能表明在肺癌发病时测量IR-hNT具有预后价值。这些结果使我们得出结论，IR-hNT虽然在肺癌筛查中不太敏感，但可能提示该疾病存在肝转移。
