口腔扁平上皮癌患者における血清 SOD 活性に関する臨床的研究

Abstract

Superoxide dismutase (SOD) is a specific enzyme in scavenging superoxide (O_2^-). SOD is noticed in medical science, but there are a few reports on serum SOD activity. Serum SOD activity was assaied for its use in detecting a marker for oral squamous cell carcinoma. Forty consecutive patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma treated in our department between 1987 and 1990 were entered in this study. Blood specimens were collected after informed consent was received from the patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma, oral benign diseases, and helthy control. The results were as follows : 1. The mean serum concentration of SOD activity for patients with oral squamous cell carcinom (18.5±9.9%, n=40) was significantly lower than that of healthy control patients (20.3±10.9%, n=20). 2. In oral squamous cell carcinoma, there was no significant correlation between serum SOD activity and the age, the sex, the tumor size (T classification), Stage calassification, prognosis. However, it was significantly lower in the terminal satge of oral squamous cell carcinoma. 3. The serum SOD activity was significantly lower in the regional lymph node metastasis as compared to the no metastasis of regional lymph node. 4. There was no significant correlation between serum SOD activity and histological differentiation. 5. The serum SOD activity correlated with the grade of malignancy and the mode of invasion. 6. There was no significant correlation between serum SOD activity and the mean serum concentrations of CEA (carcinoembryonic antigen), SCC (squamous cell carcinoma correlated antigen), IAP (immunosuprresive acid protein) In these investigations, the determination of serum SOD activity in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma may prove to be not useful for early diagnosis. However, These results suggest that the serum SOD activity provides important information of invasion, proliferative activity and regional lymph node metastasis. Therefore, the determination of serum SOD activity is a clinically useful marker for screening of patients with oral cancer.