Urinary Tissue Factor Levels in Prostatic Carcinoma: A Potential. Marker of Metastatic Spread ?

Abstract

Recent investigations have suggested that levels of urinary tissue factor (UTF) may be elevated in some forms of cancer. We have determined UTF levels in healthy controls, patients presenting for surgery with benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH) and untreated prostate cancer. Patients undergoing check cystoscopy, who were free of recurrent bladder cancer, and a cohort of men with bone scan positive prostate cancer recently treated by androgen ablation were also studied. UTF levels were higher in patients with prostate cancer when compared with controls, those undergoing check cystoscopy and patients with BPH. In patients with prostate cancer, bone scan positive patients had higher levels than bone scan negative subjects. The androgen ablated group had UTF levels similar to those of the control groups and significantly lower than the bone scan positive group. A weak correlation was found between UTF and serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels when patients with BPH and untreated cancer were analysed, but no correlation was demonstrable between PSA and UTF when cancer patients alone were evaluated. It was concluded that UTF levels are elevated in untreated prostate cancer and reflect bone scan status. In patients with bone scan positive disease UTF also reflects disease activity and may therefore be a useful disease marker in prostate cancer.

Urinary Tissue Factor Levels in Neoplastic Diseases

“…This result confirms other reports 16 and is also consistent with our finding that uTF activity is increased with tumor grade or stage.…”

“…13,14 Previous studies have shown that uTF is increased in patients with cancer and inflammatory bowel diseases, [13][14][15][16] although unpublished studies by other workers failed to confirm this finding. Recently, we described a highly standardized assay for measuring uTF activity, with a coefficient of variation (CV)<10%.…”

“…A preceding study showed an overall correlation between the two parameters when both patients with BPH and prostate cancer were analyzed, but not when the cohort with prostate cancer were tested alone. 16 However, we observed no significant difference in the correlations when it was examined for the two groups independently, although it tended to be higher numerically with the BPH. This apparent difference in those studies could be attributed to the number in each case.…”

“…15,16 In our study, there was a trend towards increasing uTF levels corresponding to those of tumor grade or stage. uTF activity also decreased in longer-surviving patients with malignancy.…”

“…[23][24][25] Carty et al 13,14 and Adamson et al 15,16 demonstrated increased levels of uTF in patients with cancer and inflammatory bowel disease. However, the protocol used for measuring uTF activity in the previous studies may not have been completely reliable.…”