| Abstract: | ![]()
Polyamines (putrescine, spermidine, spermine) are organic cations which are omnipresent in the living world and intimately involved in the phenomena of cell kinetics. Putrescine primarily reflects tissue growth while spermidine concentrations correlate with lysis. Several techniques exist for polyamine measurement in serum, urine and other biological fluids. At present, use of an automatic ion exchanger represents the most satisfactory method, with urine being the ideal physiological fluid.Neoplasias without residual disease present concentrations identical to those of the control group, whereas excessive values are specific to tumors in evolution. While high concentrations of these kinetic markers are also associated with certain benign affections, the latter are rare or easily diagnosed, and the value of these markers in oncology remains unaffected.Combined measurement of putrescine and spermidine levels allows evaluation of the tumor growth/lysis ratio at any given moment. The most important feature of this analysis of kinetics is the possibility of short term evaluation of the efficacy of a therapy program. |
