Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vol 28, Issue 12 729-732, Copyright © 1998 by Foundation for Promotion of Cancer Research
LJ Wu, KY Chen, KH Chi, SY Chen, MJ Liang, CY Shiau, LW Wang, YM Liu, KC Chow and SH Yen
BACKGROUND: Soluble interleukin-2 receptor alpha (sIL-2R alpha) is a
well-known indicator of T-cell activation noted to be increasing in
nasopharyngeal cancer. However, the significance of sIL-2R alpha in
monitoring disease relapse is unclear. This study was initiated to address
this issue. METHODS: Serum of 56 patients with NPC, which underwent either
primary, salvage, or palliative treatments, from 1992 to 1993 at the Cancer
Center, Veterans General Hospital-Taipei, were collected from our serum
bank. According to their disease status at the time of study, at least two
years after last treatments, the 56 patients were divided into four groups.
The remission group represented those in remission at the time of study (n
= 24). The metastasis group represented those with distant metastasis
present at the time of study (n = 17). The recurrence group represented
those with locoregional recurrence present at the time of study (n = 11).
The combined group represented those with locoregional recurrence as well
as distant metastasis (n = 4). The seral sIL-2R alpha concentrations of the
56 NPC patients were determined with enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assay.
The combined group was excluded in our statistical analysis. We performed
statistical analysis on the differences of paired serum sIL-2R alpha
concentrations between different periods of the diseases. The first
analysis was on the differences of sIL-2R alpha concentrations between
diagnosis and post-radiotherapy periods for 13 out of 24 patients in the
remission group and 7 out of 11 patients in the recurrence group. The
second analysis was on the differences of sIL-2R alpha concentration
between follow-up before detection-of-relapse and after
detection-of-relapse for 5 out of 17 patients in the metastasis group and
six out of 11 patients in the recurrence group. RESULTS: The first
statistical analysis revealed no significant differences of sIL-2R alpha
concentrations for the remission group (P = 0.946) and the recurrence group
(P = 0.156) between diagnosis and post-radiotherapy periods. The second
statistical analysis revealed no significant differences of sIL-2R alpha
concentrations between before and after detection-of-relapse for the
recurrence group, neither (P = 0.438). The results for the metastasis group
were different. The sIL-2R alpha concentrations were shown to increase
after the detection of metastasis for the 5 paired samples from the
metastasis group, although the Wilcoxon signed ranks test on the
differences only showed borderline significance (P = 0.063). CONCLUSIONS:
Our findings show that sIL-2R alpha would be of no value in monitoring the
development of locoregional recurrence but might be useful in monitoring
distant metastasis. Although our current limited data did not provide
strong support for the role of sIL-2R alpha in monitoring metastasis, it
might be delineated in the future by collecting more data.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The significance of soluble interleukin-2 receptor in monitoring disease relapse in patients with nasopharyngeal cancer
Cancer Center, Veterans General Hospital-Taipe, Taiwan.
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  A. Jayasurya, B.-H. Bay, W.-M. Yap, and N.-G. Tan Lymphocytic Infiltration in Undifferentiated Nasopharyngeal Cancer Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg, November 1, 2000; 126(11): 1329 - 1332. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|