M. Grande et al., Tissue concentrations of tissue polypeptide antigen (TPA) and prostatic specific antigen (PSA) in 42 patients with prostatic carcinoma, PROSTATE, 45(4), 2000, pp. 299-303
BACKGROUND. Following development of methods to quantitate biochemical mark
ers in aspiration biopsies we showed that tissue concentration of prostate
specific antigen (T-PSA) decreased with increasing malignancy while serum P
SA increased. We also found that T-PSA predicts the clinical outcome better
than earlier used prognostic markers.
METHODS. In order to further study biochemical markers in prostatic cancer
a membrane protein, tissue polypeptide antigen (TPA), which is a complex of
polypeptide fragments of cytokeratins 8, 18, and 19, was quantitated in 42
patients with newly diagnosed carcinoma of the prostate. The samples had p
reviously been analyzed for T-PSA.
RESULTS. Correlation to TGM classification showed that higher malignancy is
correlated to lower tissue TPA values. There is a significant positive cor
relation (r(s) = 0.49, P < 0.01) between T-TPA and T-PSA. Pretreatment valu
es of T-PSA, but not T-TPA, had association to time to progression or time
to death.
CONCLUSIONS. Increasing prostatic malignancy is correlated to decreasing va
lues of TTPA. This indicates that the concentrations of membrane and secret
ory proteins are changed in the same direction in tissue during cancer deve
lopment. Tissue TPA seem to have no prognostic value in endocrine treatment
of prostatic carcinoma. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.