Urinary epidermal growth factor receptor-binding growth factors in patients with cancers of the digestive tract

To investigate whether the urinary excretion of epidermal growth factor (EGF) and transforming growth factor-alpha (TGF-alpha) is increased in patients with cancer of the digestive tract, EGF and TGF-alpha were determined in 109 cancer patients and 40 healthy controls. Excluding EGF in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and TGF-alpha in pancreatic cancer, both growth factors in each cancer group were significantly higher than in the control group. A receiver operating characteristic curve and likelihood ratio were applied to obtain the best diagnostic efficiency. Both EGF and TGF-alpha had high specificity (100%) in all cancer group. The high sensitivity of EGF in gastric cancer (100%) and metastatic liver cancer (93.3%), moderate sensitivity of TGF-alpha in metastatic liver cancer (86.6%), colon cancer (80.0%), and HCC (61.7%) suggested that they might be helpful in identifying these cancers. In conclusion, urinary excretion of EGF and TGF-alpha increased in most cancers of the digestive tract. They may be used as tumor markers.