Relationship of urinary polyamines to tumor activity and tumor volume in patients.

Serially obtained urinary polyamine levels were determined for 192 patients during a specified time period. The number of patient urine samples totaled 938. The patients had tumors of either the breast, stomach, prostate, or female genital tract, or metastatic carcinomas of unknown origin. Tumor activity and tumor volume, along with other clinical information, were also recorded during the time period. Possible associations between tumor activity and tumor volume on one hand, and polyamine levels on the other hand, were explored via different statistical analyses. For each tumor type, statistically significant group differences were found in polyamine levels between patients with nonactive tumors and patients with active large tumors. Predictive values of polyamine assays for change in disease activity and stability in disease nonactivity for tumors of the breast, female genital tract, and prostate were also computed. For breast tumors, these predictive values do not support the clinical utility of the use of polyamine levels to monitor disease states. For tumors of the female genital tract and prostate, these predictive values yield an indeterminant conclusion.