The monitoring of serum factors in patients with cancer.

Numerous changes occur in the sera of patients bearing malignant neoplasms. These changes may take the form of appearance of oncofetal proteins that are normally not detectable in non-cancer-bearing patients, or an alteration in the normally present serum constituents such as the serum proteins. Monitoring of these serum factors may be of considerable value in assessing the progress of cancer patients following treatment of their primary tumour. This paper reviews progress in this area to date and documents our early results with six non-specific serum factors (total protein, total protein hexose, total protein hexosamine, ceruloplasmin, alpha-1-antitrypsin, and haptoglobin), in 64 patients bearing a variety of malignant neoplasms in various stages of the disease. Present methods of postoperative assessment of cancer patients are inadequate for detecting early recurrence. Preliminary results indicate that the nonspecific serum factors that we are studying may be of considerable value for monitoring of cancer patients, and may also possibly serve as a diagnostic screen in high-risk groups.