title: Estimation of the malignancy of pleural effusions by electron spin resonance.
abstract: We conducted an electron spin resonance (ESR) study on human pleural effusions obtained from patients (n = 15) with and without cancer at 77 K. We detected two kinds of signals which are considered to be due to transition metal ions in metalloproteins such as Fe3+ in transferrin and Cu2+ in ceruloplasmin from their g values (g = 4.2 and 2.049) and line shapes. We found a significant difference in the signal intensity ratio, Cu2+/Fe3+, of the pleural effusions between cancer and noncancer patients by the Mann-Whitney U test (P < 0.01). The ESR study of pleural effusion enabled us to estimate its malignancy and may have future applications.
authors.affiliation: ESR Laboratory, Electrochemical and Cancer Institute, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Takeda
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Haida
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shioya
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Matsumori
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kimura
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hasumi
mesh_terms: D004578:Electron Spin Resonance Spectroscopy; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*; D016066:Pleural Effusion, Malignant / Q000175:diagnosis*