抄録
Measurement of urinary neopterin, a pteridine derivative, is specially useful for identification of all disease states involving an activated cellular immune system, as is present, for example, during cancer growth and allograft rejections, and in patients infected with intracellular microbes or viruses like human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). The urinary level of total pteridines also has a significant correlation with the incidence of all kinds of cancer. This report presents a direct comparison between the concentrations of neopterin and total pteridines in urine samples from a representative group of normal healthy subjects and cancer patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. A close relationship between the excretory levels of both neopterin and total pteridines was observed. The data presented indicate that measurement of neopterin or total pteridines is of equal potential for clinical applications. However, as specific measurement of neopterin by high-performance liquid chromatography or radioimmunoassay techniques being more expensive and time consuming, the rapid measurement of total pteridines should be preferred for routine monitoring of patients under therapy as well as for single-step screening of a population for all disease states associated with an activated cellular immune system.
