[Analysis of serum soluble interferon alpha/beta receptor levels in patients with urological diseases].

Purpose: In order to define the clinical significance of serum soluble Interferon alpha/beta receptor (sIFN alpha/beta R) levels, we determined sIFN alpha/beta R concentrations in serum of patients with urological benign and malignant diseases.

Materials And Methods: Serum sIFN alpha/beta R levels were measured in normal control (n = 22), patients with benign diseases (n = 50) included urolithiasis (n = 16), prostatic hypertrophy (n = 13), and malignant diseases included bladder cancer (n = 49), renal cell carcinoma (n = 30) and prostate cancer (n = 36) by the enzyme linked immunosolbent assay (ELISA) using monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies. The levels of serum sIFN alpha/beta R was correlated with the results of other hematoserological examinations, and clinical or pathological characters of each urological malignancies.

Results: The serum sIFN alpha/beta R levels (pg/ml) of patients with urolithiasis (2,370.6 +/- 640.6, p = 0.0002), benign prostatic hypertrophy (2,121.1 +/- 550.6, p = 0.0103), bladder cancer (2,512.3 +/- 1,012.3, p = 0.0006), renal cell carcinoma (2,686.4 +/- 1,510.9, p = 0.0046), prostate cancer (3,188.7 +/- 1,788.0, p = 0.0003) showed significantly higher values than those of controls (1,709.5 +/- 346.7). Moreover, we found statistically significant correlations among serum creatinine (Cr) levels and sIFN alpha/beta R levels. However, there were no correlations between the sIFN alpha/beta R levels and clinical stage, or histological grade in the patients with bladder cancer or prostate cancer, whenever the levels of sIFN alpha/beta R were corrected by serum Cr levels. On the other hand, high level of corrected serum sIFN alpha/beta R was observed in patients with high stage or high grade renal cell carcinoma, but not significant statistically.

Conclusions: Elevated serum sIFN alpha/beta R was observed in patients with urological disease. Further examinations should be necessary to determine the clinical usefulness of serum sIFN alpha/beta R.