[Serum concentration of laminin in renal cell carcinoma]

Serum concentration of laminin was measured radioimmunologically in 19 patients with renal cell carcinoma and 71 normal controls. The serum laminin levels of renal cell carcinoma patients were significantly higher than those of normal controls. After nephrectomy the elevated serum levels of laminin showed marked decreases in most of the patients without metastasis. By the immunofluorescent technique with LAM-1, a monoclonal antibody which is specific to laminin A and B chains , strong fluorescence was found in the extracellular matrix in renal cancer tissue. Taken all these facts together, renal cell carcinoma may be a laminin synthetic tumor. The average serum laminin level of the patients with a disseminated disease were significantly higher than that of the patients with a localized disease. The elevated serum level of laminin may play an important role in the process of tumor metastasis. Furthermore, our data suggest that elevated laminin levels may predict the subsequent course of a tumor condition. The monitoring of serum laminin level may be valuable for following-up of the course of renal cell carcinoma.