Abstract
Uric acid is the end product of purine metabolism, and hypoxanthine is the precursor of uric acid in human. Some studies on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) uric acid and hypoxanthine in patients with various neurological diseases were reported in the literature. In this study we discussed the clinical value of the measurement of CSF uric acid and hypoxanthine levels in patients with brain tumor. CSF was investigated for uric acid and hypoxanthine in 23 normal controls and 30 cases with brain tumor. The results as follows;
1) The mean values and standard deviations of uric acid and hypoxanthine level in normal controls were 0.23±0.13 mg/dl,0.07± 0.03 mg/dlrespectively.
2) The CSF uric acid levels increased in patients with malignant brain tumor, but were normal range in patients with benign tumor.
3) The CSF hypoxanthine levels were normal range in patients with benign or malignant brain tumor.
4) Uric acid in lumbar CSF were approximately 4 times higher than that in ventricular CSF in patients with brain tumor. On the contrary, hypoxanthine levels were not different in both CSF.
5) The CSF uric acid and hypoxanthine levels had increased progressively in spite of decreasing in tumor size while the irradiation was performed to the whole brain.
6) It was suggested that the measurement of CSF uric acid and hypoxanthine levels were useful to find the subclinical condition of the patients with cerebral diseases, however the dynamic conditions in a multi-components system like this were extremely complicated.
