Cancers plasma MMPs/TIMPs levels

In patients with thyroid cancer, Komorowski et al. (K8) reported that plasma MMP-2 levels were higher (605 82 ng/ml versus 149 44 ng/ml), along with TIMP-2 (114 7 ng/ml versus 61 9 ng/ml) than in controls in contrast, lower levels of MMP-1 (0.70 0.42 ng/ml versus 3.87 0.53 ng/ml) were reported. Increased levels of plasma MMP-3 and MMP-9 were found in patients with medullary thyroid carcinoma. 

Manenti et al. (M2) reported that plasma MMP-9, TIMP-1, and TIMP-2 levels were higher in the plasma of ovarian cancer patients than in the plasma of women with nonmalignant disease or healthy women plasma MMP-2 levels were not increased in cancer patients. Of these parameters, only TIMP-1 was associated with a poor survival and mortality risk. They reported that levels of activated MMP-9 (identified by gelatin substrate zymography) were increased in the plasma of patients with either ovarian cancer or nonmalignant ovarian disease as compared to healthy subjects, thus negating the discriminative value of the test for cancer. 

Employing a sandwich ELISA with two different monoclonal antibodies to MMP-9, Zucker et al. (ZIO) demonstrated that plasma MMP-9 was significantly increased in patients with breast cancer and gastrointestinal tract cancer (metastatic and nonmetastatic) as compared to normal subjects. Latent MMP-9 TIMP-1 complexes were significantly increased in the plasma of patients with GI cancer and female genitourinary tract cancer as compared to controls. Some of these patients had increased plasma complexes and normal MMP-9 and vice versa. When the results from both the MMP-9 and complex data were combined, increased levels of either MMP-9 or complexes were found in 36% of patients with GI cancer and 65% of... 

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