Plasma tetranectin is reduced in cancer and related to metastasia

Tetranectin, a recently identified and characterized human plasma protein related to the fibrinolytic system, was significantly reduced in patients with various malignancies. Plasma tetranectin, measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), was a significant discriminator regarding metastatic or nonmetastatic cancer. It had a high predictive specificity (0.93) and sensitivity (0.75) and only misclassified 14% of patients. Tetranectin may be related to the pathogenetically important processes leading to cancer spread and metastasis. In this respect, it may prove to be of discriminative importance clinically.