| Abstract: | Bone metastasis is one of the characteristic behavior of recurrent breast cancer. Usually, X-ray detect and/or bone scintigraphy are used to evaluate bone metastasis. However, false positive cases are occasionally encountered in these modalities. This is a report of the results from the measurement of serum osteocalcin (OC) in breast cancer with bone metastasis. OC is one of the protein dependent on Vitamin K. The results were as follows: 1) Serum levels of OC in 56 patients with primary breast cancer were measured. The mean level of serum OC was significantly higher than that in patients with benign breast disease. But the comparisons in each stage were not statistically significant. 2) The mean serum OC level in patients of primary breast cancer with bone metastasis was higher than that in breast cancer without bone metastasis (p less than 0.05). This was remarkable in the patients of recurrent breast cancer (p less than 0.01). 3) Serum OC levels in bone metastasis patients were increased in group with normocalcemia, while it was normal or decreased in that with hypercalcemia. There was no significant correlation between either serum OC and ALP values, or between serum OC and serum Ca values. The slight positive and reverse correlation were observed between OC and ALP, OC and sCa, respectively. 4) In many cases with bone metastasis, serum OC levels were elevated before bone lesions were detected by bone scintigraphy. 5) In advanced stage of the patients with bone metastasis and hypercalcemia, serum OC level decreased. The increased level of serum OC was maintained when high dose of calcitonin was administered. |
