gms | German Medical Science

57th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Neurosurgery
Joint Meeting with the Japanese Neurosurgical Society

German Society of Neurosurgery (DGNC)

11 - 14 May, Essen

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Measurement of serum glial fibrillary acidic protein: GFAP – a serum marker for Glioblastoma?

Messung von saurem glialem Faserprotein im Serum: GFAP – ein Serummarker für Glioblastome?

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  • corresponding author C. Jung - Klinik für Neurochirurgie, Universitätsklinikum Frankfurt/Main
  • A. Heck - Klinik und Poliklinik für Neurologie, Universitätsklinikum Frankfurt/Main
  • C. Förch - Klinik und Poliklinik für Neurologie, Universitätsklinikum Frankfurt/Main
  • M. Sitzer - Klinik und Poliklinik für Neurologie, Universitätsklinikum Frankfurt/Main
  • A. Raabe - Klinik für Neurochirurgie, Universitätsklinikum Frankfurt/Main
  • V. Seifert - Klinik für Neurochirurgie, Universitätsklinikum Frankfurt/Main

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie. Japanische Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie. 57. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie e.V. (DGNC), Joint Meeting mit der Japanischen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie. Essen, 11.-14.05.2006. Düsseldorf, Köln: German Medical Science; 2006. DocFR.03.02

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.egms.de/en/meetings/dgnc2006/06dgnc010.shtml

Published: May 8, 2006

© 2006 Jung et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

Outline

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Objective: Immunohistochemical staining of GFAP is routinely used as a marker for astroglial differentiation in the neuropathological diagnostic of brain tumors. A serum glioblastoma marker does not exist. We therefore sought to determine GFAP levels in serum of patients with glioblastoma and in healthy volunteers.

Methods: Serum GFAP levels and tumor size were determined in 49 patients with cerebral glioblastoma (30 male, 19 female; age: 64±12 years) and in 36 healthy volunteers (16 male; 20 female; 49±15 years). GFAP levels were measured using a human GFAP Elisa.

Results: Serum GFAP levels were detectable in patients with glioblastoma (0.36±0.76ng/ml) and were correlated with the tumor size (cc=0.43;p<0.01). Serum GFAP levels of healthy volunteers were significantly lower (0.003±0.002ng/ml; p<0.0001). Taking a serum GFAP level of 0.02ng/ml as the cut off point for the evaluation of sensitivity and specificity, glioblastoma were detectable with a sensitivity of 0.69 and a specificity of 1.0. The positive and negative predictive value was 1.0 and 0.71, respectively.

Conclusions: Serum GFAP levels are detectable in patients with glioblastoma and are correlated with the tumor size. Thus, serum GFAP levels may become a serum marker for glioblastoma.