TUMOR PROGRESSION AND OXIDANT-ANTIOXIDANT STATUS

Severity of prognosis factors in breast cancer cases was found to be a ssociated with an increase in plasma vitamin E and a decrease in plasm a malondialdehyde (peroxidability index). The first aim of this study was to determine whether this association is also present in other can cers, Measurements were taken before therapy on 129 patients with vari ous carcinomas, Cholesterol was also investigated, as vitamin E is clo sely related to this analyte. Patients were classified by tumor size ( T less than or equal to 5 cm and T > 5 cm) and by invasion status, ass essed by the presence of nodes and/or metastasis. The vitamin E/total cholesterol concentration ratio was higher and the cholesterol and mal ondialdehyde concentrations were significantly lower in the plasma of patients with large tumors or in whom nodes and/or metastasis were pre sent, whatever the site. The multivariate analysis performed to measur e the association of these analyte concentrations with tumor progressi on showed that the presence of nodes and/or metastases was inversely a ssociated with a low vitamin E/total cholesterol ratio (OR, 0.5; CI, 0 .3-1.1) and, directly associated with low plasma concentrations of cho lesterol and malondialdehyde (OR, 3.0; CI, 1.3-6.8 and OR, 2.8; CI, 1. 2-6.7 respectively). The same types of associations were identified wi th large tumors, but were less strong. Together these findings support ed an alteration of lipid parameters related to the oxidant-antioxidan t status in cancer patients. This alteration appears to be associated with tumor growth and progression in patients with various cancer site s.