Clinical significance of appearance of ALP₁ in malignant diseases

Abstract

We studied clinical significance of alkaline phosphatase isozyme, ALP1, which appeared in sera of patients with malignant diseases. Incidence of ALP1 was high in lung, esophageal, bile duct, gallbladder cancer, malignant lymphoma and leukemia. In contrast it was low in thyroid, mammary, prostate cancer and myeloma. ALP1 often appeared in post operative stages and the activity of ALP1 increased within a month after operation of solid cancers and of abdominal benign diseases. In the cases of solid cancers ALP1 peak appeared within 6-16 days after operation. However, in the cases of abdominal benign diseases, its appeared 3 to 10 days after operation.
We observed relationship between incidence of ALP1 and liver function or LDH isozyme in haematopoietic malignant diseases. In both normal and abnormal liver groups, the incidence of ALP1 was higher in the cases with tumor pattern LDH isozyme (increase in LDH₂ and/or LDH₃) than those with the normal pattern.