The pattern of serum proteins electrophoregram in malignancy

Background and The levels of serum acute phase reactant proteins change in different malignant diseases that along with other proteins could be assessed by electrophoresis. The electrophoretic pattern of serum proteins of 85 patients bearing different types of neoplasia and 85 matched normal adults were comparatively studied by agarose gel electrophoresis to find out if there is specific protein pattern in cancer. Ëach protein fraction was analyzed quantitatively by densitometry. The significant differences between variables were evaluated by student's t-test. Multivariate logistic regression and RÔÇ analysis were performed using SPSS software. When total protein and albumin were measured by colorimetric methods, cancer patients showed less total protein concentration (6.3 ± 1.4 g/dL vs. 7.6 ± 0.7, P£ 0.000) and albumin (3.9 ± 0.8 g/dL vs. 4.6 ± 0.4, P£ 0.000). compared with controls Ëlectrophoretic data of serum proteins showed that, the ratio of albumin to globulin (0.92 ± 0.30 vs. 1.21 ± 0.16, P£ 0.000), percent of the fractions albumin (%46.7 ± 8.5 vs. %54.4 ± 3.5, P£ 0.000) and b-globulin (%11.6 ± 4.4 vs. %13.0 ± 1.9, P£ 0.001) decreased and a1 (%5.3 ± 2.5 vs. %2.9 ± 0.8, P£ 0.000), a2 (%13.5 ± 4.8 vs. %11.3 ± 2.1, P£ 0.000) and g-globulins (%23.0 ± 7.7 vs. %18.6 ± 3.1, P£ 0.000) increased significantly in cancer patients compared with controls. The cancer patients also had higher leukocytes counts (7977 ± 3111 vs. 6505 ± 1566, P£ 0.000) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (35.9 ± 23.5 vs. 14.1 ± 9.5, P£ 0.000). Ânalyses of the data using multiple logistic regression also indicated that, total protein, the ratio of albumin to globulin, the fraction of alpha-1 globulin and ËSR were the best parameters to discriminate malignant and normal states. The proteins profile out of the normal ranges occurred in about 83% of the cancer patients and 17% of the controls. The prevalence of cancer was strongly associated with the components of serum proteins profile. The area under the RÔÇ curves was the same for most components of serum proteins profile as about 0.80 ± 0.05. The area was 0.59 ± 0.07, P£ 0.1 for WBÇ counts and 0.87 ± 0.06, P£ 0.000 for ËSR.