Biochemical Markers Used in Diagnosis of Nasopharyngeal Cancer

Nasopharyngeal biopsy tissues were collected from 31 patients with NPC and 27 healthy people who were pathologically diagnosed as nonnasopharyngeal carcinoma. High metabolites were selected and confirmed in NPC tissues. Sensitivity and specificity were appraised for 53 NPC diagnoses.

The LC/GC–MS profiles were significantly different among the three groups. In these profiles, 51 metabolites were considered endogenous metabolites, which included organic acids, amino acids, and fatty acids involved in multiple biochemical processes. These were studied further for their potential to represent the metabolic pattern of the disease and recovery states.

The results showed that four metabolites, kynurenine, N-acetylglucosaminylamine, N-acetylglucosamine and hydroxyphenylpyruvate gradually increased from normal nasopharyngeal, atypical hyperplasia to NPC. Their sensitivity and specificity of the four metabolites were respectively 79% and 71%, 78% and 69%, 83% and 68%, 84% and 73% for NPC diagnosis. Three other metabolites, stearic acid, N-acetylgalactosamine and glycine did not change. This implies that these four metabolites may serve as potential markers as after radiotherapy, the four metabolites decreased gradually, tended to a normal level, and were associated with rate of tumor reduction.

The authors concluded that the four metabolites, hydroxyphenylpyruvate, N-acetylglucosaminylamine, N-acetylglucosamine, and kynurenine, could potentially serve as biomarkers for the early diagnosis and efficacy of therapy, and could also be used to monitor the recurrence and metastasis of NPC. The study was published online on March 12, 2011, in Clinical Biochemistry.

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