title: Urinary epidermal growth factor receptor-binding growth factors in patients with cancers of the digestive tract.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, Kaohsiung Medical College, Taiwan.
authors.forename: L Y
authors.initials: LY
authors.lastname: Chuang
authors.forename: W C
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Hung
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: C C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: J F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Tsai
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000652:urine*; D004067:Digestive System Neoplasms / Q000652:urine*; D004815:Epidermal Growth Factor / Q000652:urine*; D066246:ErbB Receptors / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012372:ROC Curve; D016211:Transforming Growth Factor alpha / Q000652:urine*
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D016211:Transforming Growth Factor alpha; D004815:Epidermal Growth Factor; D066246:ErbB Receptors