The efficacy of a serum carboxyterminal pyridinoline cross-linked telopeptide of type I collagen as a quantitative screening marker for bone metastases in patients with urological malignancies

In order to ascertain whether carboxyterminal pyridinoline cross-linked telopeptide of type I collagen (ICTP) might be useful as a serum screening parameter for bone metastases from non-prostate urological malignancies as well as prostate cancers, as series of 210 patients were examined. In addition to ICTP, serum alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and also prostate specific antigen (PSA) in the prostate cancer cases were assayed using commercial kits. The areas under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were 0.7846 for ICTP (cut-off point 9.6 mug/l), 0.8304 for ALP in prostate cancer cases, and 0.8278 for ICTP (cut-off point 10.6 mug/l), and 0.7139 for ALP in non-prostate cancer cases. While significance was only observed for ICTP and PSA in prostate cancer cases, borderline significance was also evident with ICTP for non-prostate malignancies, and with ALP for prostate cancer case. The results suggest that serum ICTP may be useful in combination with ALP as a quantitative clinical marker for low cost screening for bone metastases in patients with all types of urological malignancies. (C) 2002 International Society for Preventive Oncology. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.