Measurement of bone alkaline phosphatase and relative study with osteosarcoma.

The objective of this paper is to explore the value of bone alkaline phosphatase (BALP) for diagnosing osteosarcoma, evaluating the effect of the chemotherapy, judging the prognosis and supervising the relapse and metastasis. The immunoassay was used to check the BALP of the blood serum that was from 42 primary osteosarcoma patients. Alkaline phosphatase (ALP) in blood serum was checked with auto biochemistry equipment. The biopsy tissue and the lesion resected in operation were treated with pathology and histological response was counted. The patients were followed up from five months to 49 months with an average of 24.3 months. Eighteen cases relapsed and transferred, among which, 16 of them were dead, and others were survival to the end of the follow-up. BALP was more sensitive than ALP in diagnosing osteosarcoma (P = 0.015). Fifteen cases decreased to normal value in ALP after preoperative chemotherapy, and 34 cases decreased in BALP. Both ALP and BALP in all cases decreased to normal value in post-operative. There was significant difference in positive correlation between the decrease of BALP and the increase of histological response (P = 0.001, r = 0.642). In the follow-up, there was significant difference in BALP between the group of relapse and transfer and the group of free disease survival (P = 0.000). As a check marker in blood serum, BALP, reflecting the process of ossification, has a higher sensitivity than ALP. It has applied value in the diagnosis of osteosarcoma, reflection of the effect of chemotherapy and forecast the prognosis.