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Man Ho Choi, Kyoung Rae Kim, Young Tae Kim, Bong Chul Chung, Increased Polyamine Concentrations in the Hair of Cancer Patients, Clinical Chemistry, Volume 47, Issue 1, 1 January 2001, Pages 143–144, https://doi.org/10.1093/clinchem/47.1.143
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To the Editor:
Rapid tumor growth has been associated with markedly altered polyamine biosynthesis and accumulation (1), and an increase in the concentrations of plasma and urinary polyamines might provide an independent biochemical marker of disease activity and response to therapy (2)(3)(4)(5). However, because the components of urine and plasma show variations throughout the day and because these two specimens are rather inconvenient to obtain and handle, another noninvasive method for measuring polyamine concentrations was required. According to recent reports, hair fibers may be used to obtain physiologic information (6)(7)(8). Using hair samples, we have quantified biosynthetic steroids, which are converted from testosterone by 5α-reductase or cytochrome P-450 aromatase (9)(10). We have now investigated whether hair polyamine concentrations are altered in cancer patients.
We obtained hair from 49 patients treated at Yonsei Medical Center from November 1998 to January 1999, including 13 individuals with invasive cervical cancers, 11 with ovarian carcinomas, and 25 who underwent hysterectomies for benign gynecological disease. The latter were matched with the cancer patients for age. None of the subjects had been treated with radiotherapy or chemotherapy before the hair sampling. The hair samples were obtained by collecting the portions that had been cut off during haircuts.
