Kc. Tsao et Jt. Wu, Development of an ELISA for the detection of serum chromogranin A (CgA) inprostate and non-neuroendocrine carcinomas, CLIN CHIM A, 313(1-2), 2001, pp. 21-29
Introduction: Chromogranin A (CgA) is a glycoprotein found in neuroendocrin
e cells and may be useful as a tumor marker for neuroendocrine tumors. Meth
ods: We developed an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for serum Cg
A on a microtiter plate. Results: We established a reference range for both
women and men of different age groups ranging from 20 to 80 years. Men app
eared to have a slightly higher serum CgA concentration than women. This sl
ight increase in serum CgA concentration was also found in both gender grou
ps with advancing age. We also detected increased serum CgA in a variety of
cancers and non-endocrine carcinomas: the majority of the increased serum
CgA was associated with specimens containing highly increased concentration
of tumor markers. In other words, increased serum CgA was found at later,
more advanced stages of the disease in these patients. For patients with pr
ostate cancer, serum CgA was increased much earlier than serum PSA in appro
ximately one-third of prostate cancer patients developing resistance to hor
monal therapy. Conclusions: The early rise of serum CgA provides an early s
ignal for prostate cancer patients who developed resistance to hormonal the
rapy: this advance signal could create a critical window for therapy change
s to be made before diseases progress to a fatal stage. (C) 2001 Elsevier S
cience B.V. All rights reserved.