Thermal coagulation of serum proteins in cancer, in the postoperative phase of surgery, and in the administration of adrenocorticotropic hormone

Abstract

nature of the serum proteins in patients with cancer has been the subject of considerable ~t u d y . 2 ~ Recently, Huggins, Miller, and Jensen submitted a quantitative method for estimating the thermal coagulability of these proteins.''Employing the lowest concentration of total serum protein necessary to undergo thermal coagulation under certain standardized conditions as one criterion of such coagulability, Huggins and his associates found that in seventy-six, or 92 per cent, of eighty-three patients with cancer, a concentration of at least 1.5 gm. per 100 cc. was required for coagulation.I n contrast, in twenty-one (21 per cent) of 101 cases with noncancerous disease (including tuberculosis), and in none, or 0 per cent, of eightyfour