[Determination of circulating ectopic beta HCG in solid tumors (author's transl)].

The beta subunit of human chorionic gonadotropin (betaHCG) was performed on the serum of 1 850 patients with microscopically documented non trophoblastic carcinomas. 96 patients (5,2%) had elevated betaHCG plasma levels. The incidence of elevated plasma values varied little from one studied malignancy to another; the highest circulating levels were observed in patient's with bladder carcinomas (22,2%), squamous cell carcinomas of the bronchus (14,2%), pancreatic (20%) and colo-rectum (15,7%) adenocarcinomas. BetaHCG determinations did not improved the diagnostic sensibility of CEA values except for the bladder carcinomas. The short mean survival of patients with positive betaHCG values suggests that elevated ectopic betaHCG, sometime during the clinical course of metastatic maligancies worsens the prognosis.