Alterations in Total Sialic Acid (TSA), Total Proteins (TP) and TSA/TP ratio in cancer patients

Total serum sialic acid (TSA), total proteins (TP) and TSA/TP ratio (as tumor markers) have been estimated in 108 cancer patients, 30 pathological controls and 50 normal healthy controls. Data analysis indicated a significant increase (p< 0.001) in the TSA and TSA/TP ratio in cancer patients (98.41 ± 13.5 mg/dl and 15.31 ± 2.57 mg/gm) as compared to pathological controls (77.57 ± 21.09 mg/dl and 11.94 ± 3.43 mg/gm) and normal control (64.77 ± 7.98 mg/dl and 8.9 ± 1.15mg/gm) respectively. A significant decrease (p<0.001) in serum levels of total proteins were found in all cases of cancer compared to the normal (6.46 ± 0.48 mg/dl and 7.29 ± 0.55 gm/dl) and pathological controls (6.53 ± 0.36 gm/dl).Further analysis of the data in patient subgroups of malignancy based on tissue involved indicated that the lack of specificity of the markers but the sensitivity of TSA and TSA/TP increased as the malignancy become more severe. The results show that TSA/TP was the most useful marker for detecting malignancies.