Abstract
Urinary excretion of parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTH-rP) was measured by radioimmunoassay in 25 patients with adult T-cell leukemia (ATL), in 68 patients with other hematologic disorders and in 13 asymptomatic individuals seropositive for human T-cell leukemia virus type I (HTLV-I). The mean levels of urinary PTH-rP in ATL patients with hypercalcemia (11.01 μg/g·Cr) were higher than in ATL patients with normocalcemia (5.16 μg/g·Cr). The mean levels in patients with acute type (8.84 μg/g·Cr), lymphoma type (4.18 μg/g·Cr) and crisis ATL (18.20 μg/g·Cr) were significantly higher than in urine of healthy controls. However, all asymptomatic carriers of HTLV-I and patients with chronic and smoldering ATL had normal urinay PTH-rP levels. In 7 patients with acute myelogenous leukemia, 1 patient with blastic crisis of chronic myelogenous leukemia and 3 patients with malignant lymphoma, the urinary levels of PTH-rP were above the normal range. Urinary levels of PTH-rP of the ATL patients with hypercalcemia correlated with the serum calcium levels. Urinary levels of PTH-rP of the all ATL correlated with serum lactic dehydrogenase level. These findings suggest that the measurement of urinary levels of PTH-rP is useful for evaluation of ATL and that some tumor cells of other hematologic diseases may produce PTH-rP.
