Detections Of Souble CD44 In Peripheral Blood Of Patients With Malignant Lymphoproliferative Disorders And Its Clinical Implications

ObjectTo investigate the relationship of the level of soluble CD44 to clinical status and treatment outcome in patients with malignant lymphoproliferative disorders. MethodEnzyme- linked immunosorbent assay was employed to determine the levels of sCD44 in peripheral blood of patients with malignant lymphoproliferative disorders before and after therapy, including 20 patients with acute lymphoblastic Leukemia(ALL), 10 patients with Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma(NHL), 4 patients with Multiple myeloma (MM). ResultPre-treatment serum sCD44std levels were higher in 14 ALL patients, 8 NHL patients and 4 MM patients. There was statistical difference between patients and controls (PO.05 or P<0.01). Pre-treatment sCD44std levels paralleled to the numbers of WBC in ALL, IPI group and Ann Arbor stage in NHL and Durie-Salmon stage in MM. There was no statistical difference between the patient groups with high and low sCD44std levels and the achievement of CR in ALL> NHL or MM. But sCD44std levels returned to normal while patients responsed to treatment. Higher levels of sCD44std after treatment tended to refractoriness or relapse.Serum sCD44v5 and sCD44v6 concentrations decreasedsignificantly before treatment (P<0.05), and returned to normal while being CR. In contrast to ALL, Pre-treatment serum sCD44v6 concentrations were sharply higher in NHL or MM group (P<0.05), and paralleled with the risk group. After-treatment sCD44v6 levels came down gradually. In addition, patients in NHL or MM group always had similar sCD44v5 concentrations as the controls before and after treatment. Conclusion1. The levels of sCD44std in patients with malignant lymphoproliferative discords were significantly higher before treatment as compared with healthy controls, a high sCD44std level at diagnosis was associated with a high tumor burden, sCD44std levels change in paralleled with response to therapy, it suggested that sCD44std correlated well with clinical status, and may be a reliable tumor marker in these patients.2. The levels of sCD44v6 or sCD44v5 were different between the three groups, and may be indicate different clinical implications: higher serum sCD44v6 correlated with the risk group in NHL patients.while in ALL group, an inverse correlation was observed between sCD44v6 or sCD44v5 levels and tumor progression, it suggested that sCD44v6 or sCD44v5 may be connected with the activity of peripheral blood lymphocytes.