Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase: a possible clinical indicator for prostatic carcinoma.

Any system of biochemical analysis that can be used to detect chemical differences between normal and malignant cells may add potentially valuable information to complement the histologic data which provide the practical definition of human prostatic carcinoma. A difference (P less than 0.0001) was observed in the levels of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G-6-PD) activity in prostatic tissue with benign hyperplasia and prostatic carcinoma. Measured as a function of the amount of protein extracted from whole-tissue homogenates, the values for G-6-PD activity in prostatic carcinoma are almost four times those measured for benign prostatic hyperplasia. The degree of elevation of the activity of this enzyme suggests a correlation between enzymatic activity and clinical prognosticators, ie., histologic differentiation and clinical stage.