European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, Vol 12, 885-891, Copyright © 1997 by European Association for Cardio-thoracic Surgery
Elevated plasma thymosin-alpha1 levels in lung cancer patients
H Sasaki, Y Fujii, A Masaoka, Y Yamakawa, I Fukai, M Kiriyama, Y Saito and H Matsui
Department of Surgery II, Nagoya City University Medical School, Japan.
OBJECTIVE: Prothymosin-alpha, the precursor of thymosin-alpha1, may play a
role in cell proliferation, and the plasma level of thymosin- alpha1 may
reflect the degree of proliferation of the tumor cells. METHODS: Recently,
a new sandwich immunoradiometric assay for thymosin- alpha1 was developed
using monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies. In this investigation, we used
this assay to measure plasma and tissue level of thymosin-alpha1 in 131
lung cancer patients. RESULTS: We found that the mean plasma
thymosin-alpha1 levels in lung cancer patients were higher than in normal
individuals (P < 0.001). However, half of the patients showed normal
levels. Thymosin-alpha1 levels correlated neither with the stage nor
pathological subtype of the lung cancer, and did not decrease significantly
in the 4 weeks after the resection of the tumor. Thymosin-alpha1 levels of
lung cancer patients with another cancer were higher than those without
evidence of other cancers (P = 0.03). Survival of patients with normal
levels of plasma thymosin- alpha1 was significantly better than that with
higher levels (P = 0.04). CONCLUSIONS: The plasma level of thymosin-alpha1
may be used as a marker for the prognosis of lung cancer patients. Further
investigations are warranted to determine its role in the lung cancer.
