Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., Vol 150, No. 1, 07 1994, 143-145.
Measurement of the serum tumor marker neuron-specific enolase in patients with benign pulmonary diseases
J Collazos, C Esteban, A Fernandez and J Genolla
Section of Internal Medicine, Hospital de Galdakao, Vizcaya, Spain.
Serum concentrations of neuron-specific enolase (NSE) were measured in 135
patients with benign pulmonary diseases who also underwent a clinical,
laboratory, and radiologic evaluation. Eleven percent of the patients as a
whole and 27.3% of those who were tuberculous had abnormal serum levels of
NSE. Significant differences in NSE levels were observed among the six
diagnostic groups evaluated (p = 0.002). Males had higher levels than
females (p = 0.003), and patients infected with the human immunodeficiency
virus (HIV) had higher NSE levels than those not infected (p = 0.0026).
Patients with alveolar infiltrates or an interstitial pattern on chest
X-ray had higher NSE levels than those with normal radiographs (p = 0.003
and p = 0.01, respectively). In fact, only 3.6% of the patients with normal
radiographs had above- normal levels of NSE. Direct damage to the neural or
neuroendocrine lung cells or some degree of local hypoxia is likely to play
a role in the increase in NSE in these patients. The small number and
degree of abnormal values of NSE observed in this study make it unlikely
that an underlying benign lung disease will substantially modify the
interpretation of an increased NSE value in patients with lung cancer.
However, care should be taken in interpreting a moderately abnormal NSE
value in the cancer patient in the presence of lung infiltrates such as
obstructive pneumonitis.
