[Clinical evaluation of serum gamma-seminoprotein in patients with prostatic cancer]

The level of serum gamma-seminoprotein (gamma-Sm) was measured by enzyme immunoassay in 62 patients with untreated prostatic cancer and 89 patients with benign prostatic hypertrophy histologically diagnosed to assess the clinical usefulness as a tumor marker. The level of serum prostatic acid phosphatase (PAP) was also measured by radioimmunoassay in these patients simultaneously. Serum gamma-Sm levels in prostatic cancer were significantly higher than in benign prostatic hypertrophy. There was a tendency for serum gamma-Sm levels in prostatic cancer to increase with statistically significant difference as the stage progressed. A gamma-Sm level of over 5.0 ng/ml was considered to be positive. The positive rate of gamma-Sm was 56.5% in prostatic cancer (stage A.B: 32.3%, stage C: 75.0%, stage D: 90.9%) and 19.1% in benign prostatic hypertrophy. In stage A.B cases, the positive rate of gamma-Sm was higher than that of PAP. Therefore, the measurement of gamma-Sm is considered to be useful in the diagnosis of early prostatic cancer.