Detection of tumours with nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of plasma.

A systematic investigation of cancer detection by water-suppressed nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) of plasma is reported. With additional suppression of lactate, a statistically significant difference between the linewidths of the methylene group signal of patients with untreated cancer (average linewidth 26.9 +/- 3.9 Hz) and normal controls (average linewidth 31.1 +/- 4.9 Hz) has been found. However, overlap was found between these two groups. It is shown that recognition of malignancy could be improved by consideration of the different relations of the linewidths on the content of serum triglycerides and the observation of a shoulder at the high field side of the methylene signal. Preliminary investigations on lipid fractions separated by ultracentrifugation (UC) indicate a connection of the appearance of the high field shoulder and the HDL lipoprotein.