Hyperlipidemia as a biochemical basis of magnetic resonance plasma test for cancer.

An increase in the plasma levels of apoprotein B-containing lipoproteins is the basis of the magnetic resonance (MR) test for cancer. The narrow MR line width reported by Fossel and co-workers to be associated with the presence of malignant disease is due to a relative increase of very low density lipoprotein. In contrast, the plasma from healthy controls, which has a much broader spectrum, has a higher proportion of high density lipoprotein. However, plasma from patients with hyperlipidemia unrelated to cancer also show narrow MR line widths and are therefore a confounding variable. We used magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to assess the plasma from 253 patients with a range of lipid related diseases and cancer, and 28 controls. A significant difference (p less than or equal to 0.0005) of 10 Hz exists between the mean line width of the controls and hyperlipidemics without malignant disease. However, in patients with solid tumours a difference of 7 Hz (p less than or equal to 0.0005) in the mean values is recorded although there is an overlap of 6 Hz compared with the controls. Moreover the MRS method was not found to distinguish patients with lymphomas from the control population. The index was not found to be related to patient age or tumour burden.