Recognition factors aid cancer diagnosis
Chemical & Engineering News · 1973
BIOLOGICAL —An assay procedure to evaluate the level of recognition factors in blood plasma could be a clinically useful test in both diagnosis and prognosis of malignant disease. Support for the usefulness of such a test has come from studies by Dr. Nicholas R. Di Luzio and coworkers at Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans. The suggestion for such a test procedure, Dr. Di Luzio says, is based on a number of recent research findings: · Indications that surveillance or recognition of foreignness by macrophage cells of the reticuloendothelial system depends, in part, upon the presence of protein components in plasma, which the Tulane group has designated "recognition factors." · Clinical studies to determine the relationship of recognition factors and cancer snowed that recognition factors are significantly depleted in patients with malignant tumors. · The studies also demonstrated that patients with advanced malignant disease show greater losses in recognition factor activity ...