Perspectives and limits of an immunoenzymatic assay (ELISA) for herpes simplex virus (HSV) tumor-associated antigen (TAA)
Tarro, G.; D'Alessandro, G.; Esposito, C.; Flaminio, G.; Mascolo, A.; Maturo, S.
Cancer Detection and Prevention 4(1-4): 47-51
1981
ISSN/ISBN: 0361-090X PMID: 6299562 Document Number: 171047
An ELISA has been developed to detect specific antibodies for HSV-TAA in sera of patients with head, neck and urogenital tract carcinomas (Cancer, 45:1980). Further studies have shown that 64/800 controls (8.12%), i.e. healthy people, are positive against 312/425 patients with herpes associated tumors (73.41%). People with herpes recurrens show 18% positivity, precancerous lesions 44% and other cancers 6%. Immunodepression, chemo- and radio-therapy play an inhibitory role on the ELISA positivity for TAA. Radical surgery of the HSV-TAA positive cancers results in lack of specific antibody whereas relapse or metastasis of the tumor yields positive results. The reproducibility of the test is very good and the standard error is low (1.0655). The conclusions allow us to foresee the use of this ELISA for early detection of the HSV-TAA antibodies in certain human carcinomas.