The clinical biochemical investigation on the malignant bone tumor. Studies on the variation of serum sialic acid and hexosamine contents in the patients with malignant bone tumor. Preliminary report.

Serum sialic acid and total hexosamine values were remarkably elevated in the patients with malignant bone tumor and/or metastasis, in general, but in the great number of the patients with benign bone tumor both these levels remained within the normal range. Whereas, there were some cases with malignant bone tumor showing normal values in both serum sialic acid and total hexosamine levels, but there were no patients with benign bone tumor with values over 140 mg/dl in sialic acid and 180 mg/dl in total hexosamine. Therefore, clinically, serum sialic acid and total hexosamine levels seemed to have some relation to the site and the pathological type of tumor. Serum sialic acid and total hexosamine levels had a tendency to decrease according to the effect of the treatment. However, the levels increased again after the recurrence and/or metastasis. Therefore, it may be considered valuable to estimate the serum sialic acid and total hexosamine levels to follow the response to therapy and to determine the prognosis. The positive correlation coefficient was mostly noted between the values of serum sialic acid and total hexosamine. In the cases showing high glucosamine/galactosamine ratio, it was mostly caused by the change of glucosamine contents but hardly by the change of galacto· samine contents.