Acute Phase Reactant Proteins in Cancer

Abstract

This chapter discusses the role of acute phase reactant proteins (APRPs) in various cancers— namely, prostate, breast, gastrointestinal tracts, bladder, gynecological, lung, and liver cancers. APRPs are mainly glycoproteins that alter their plasma concentration in response to stimuli produced by many forms of tissue injury, acute and chronic inflammation, connective tissue disorders, and cancer. Extrahepatic synthesis and concentration of acute phase reactant proteins and the biological effects of acute phase reactant proteins in cancer are also discussed in the chapter. APRPs are normally synthesized in the liver; there are observations that under exceptional circumstances extrahepatic synthesis is possible and some tumors appear to concentrate certain APRPs. Study of the behavior of APRPs in response to various transplanted tumors provides fundamental information about the pathways that may be involved. The chapter describes the majority of patients at some time during the evolution of advanced cancer have an elevation of APRPs. The association between a progressive rise of the APRPs and a rapid evolution of the cancer suggest that the levels of APRPs tend to be controlled by the production of signals at the tumor-host interface, the signal strength being related to the depth of penetration of the tissue, as seen in the cervix and bladder. Exploratory data analysis of single APRPs and their correlations with other APRPs is essential before launching into multivariate methods—namely,(1) discriminant analysis, (2) principal component analysis, and (3) cluster analysis, which enables to deal with simultaneous data relating to various APRPs.