Cancer-associated serum globulin demonstrated by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis

We evaluated the ability of polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) to measure protein band No. 1 (PB1) in serum as a means of discriminating between the sera of cancer patients and controls. Serum samples from 123 cancer patients, 155 subjects without clinically diagnosed cancer, and 6 members of families with a high incidence of cancer (total, 284) were obtained in Israel. An additional 214 serum samples from 80 cancer patients and 134 subjects without cancer were obtained from the Mayo Clinic-National Cancer Institute Serum Bank. Although a significantly higher proportion of serum specimens from cancer patients had positive results for PB1 by the PAGE method, the test at its current stage of development does not seem sufficiently discriminating for use in screening for cancer.