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Serum Mac-2BP does not distinguish men with high grade, large volume prostate cancer from men with benign prostatic
Donna M Peehl1, Zuxiong Chen, Rosalie Nolley
1Department of Urology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94041, USA. dpeehl@stanford.edu
Background:
Mac-2 binding protein (Mac-2BP) is a secreted protein that has been used as a serum prognostic marker for several types of cancers. A previous study showed that serum Mac-2BP was significantly higher (∼2-fold) in men with prostate cancer compared to healthy men. We investigated whether serum Mac-2BP could distinguish men with high grade, large volume prostate cancer from men with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).
Methods:
A commercially available ELISA kit was used to measure Mac-2BP in paired pre- and post-prostatectomy sera from 10 men with high grade, large volume prostate cancer, in pre-operative sera from 50 untreated men with high grade, large volume prostate cancer, and in sera from 50 men with clinical symptoms of BPH and biopsy-negative for prostate cancer. Results were analyzed by Student's t-test and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves.
Results:
Levels of Mac-2BP did not decrease in post-prostatectomy sera, and Mac-2BP values were not significantly different in the sera of men with prostate cancer versus those with BPH.
Conclusion:
Serum Mac-2BP does not appear to originate in the prostate and it is unlikely that Mac-2BP can be used for the differential diagnosis of prostate cancer versus BPH.
