Serum metallothionein - a potential oncomarker?

Metallothionein's (MT) overexpression has been demonstrated immunohistochemically in neoplastic cells of many tumour types. Its elevation above the physiological level has been confirmed in circulation of their hosts. The results of studies dealing with the topic have been summarized to verify if this marker can be applied in the current oncologic practise.

The Pubmed and Google Scholar medical databases were reviewed for full-text articles focused on MT blood (plasma / serum) levels in patients with malignant tumours.

In our review, after a precise selection, we included 8 prospective randomized trials encompassing 561 blood samples taken from patients with a large histopathological spectrum of malignancies. In general, significant differences in blood MT levels between oncological patients and healthy subjects were confirmed. No particular value of the MT level has been demonstrated to be unequivocally predictive of oncologic diseaseCONCLUSION: The results of our review suggest that although the elevation of MT in blood serum in patients with solid malignancy can be regarded as a promising tumour marker, the recommendations of its applicability in clinical practice require to be derived from further research on extended cohorts of patients (Tab. 1, Fig. 1, Ref. 49).