New and traditional serum markers of bone metabolism in the detection of skeletal metastases

Abstract

Objectives: The evaluation of "new" and "traditional" markers of osteoblastic and osteoclastic activity, in patients with bone metastases.

Design and methods: Our series consist of 40 patients with clinical, radiological, and scintigraphic evidence of bone metastases, and 40 age-matched healthy subjects. In all samples, traditional markers were evaluated by measuring total alkaline phosphatase (ALP), tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TrACP) activity, and osteocalcin (BGP) concentration. To assess new biochemical bone markers, bone isoenzyme of alkaline phosphatase (ALP-B) activity, carboxyterminal propeptide of type I procollagen (PICP), and carboxyterminal telopeptide of type I collagen (ICTP) concentrations were measured.

Results: Our findings showed that the best diagnostic efficiency is provided by ICTP (0.94) followed by total ALP (0.90), ALP-B (0.80), and TrACP (0.76). The efficiency of BGP and PICP was, instead, very low (0.64 and 0.60, respectively).

Conclusion: Our results confirm the utility of the new serum markers such as ALP-B and ICTP assays in detecting bone metastases.