[Clinical observations of plasma fibronectin in patients with urological malignant disease]

Fibronectin (FN) is a high molecular weight glycoprotein widely distributed in the body and has a number of biological activities. Recently, there have been reports on the relationship between plasma fibronectin (pFN) levels and malignant diseases, but the significance of pFN is still unclear. Using immunoturbidimetric assay, we measured pFN levels of 24 healthy controls and 61 patients with urological malignant diseases, and obtained the following results. 1. pFN levels before treatment. 1) pFN level was 379 +/- 60.6 micrograms/ml and 356 +/- 123.7 micrograms/ml in the healthy controls and patients, respectively. There was no significant difference. 2) pFN level in patients with metastases was 320 +/- 92.9 micrograms/ml and had no statistical difference as compared with patients without metastases (371 +/- 132.7 micrograms/ml) and controls, despite the decrease in the mean value. 3) pFN level in patients with poor prognosis (300 +/- 107.8 micrograms/ml) was significantly lower than that in patients with good prognosis (410 +/- 157.2 micrograms/ml) and controls (p less than 0.05). 2. pFN levels during conservative treatments for advanced disease. pFN level in patients with a rapid progressive disease (287 +/- 64.4 micrograms/ml) was significantly lower than that in patients with a slow progressive disease (327 +/- 43.3 micrograms/ml) (p less than 0.01). These data suggest that low pFN level predicts rapid progression of the disease and poor prognosis in patients with a urological malignant disease.