HPLC-LIF for early detection of oral cancer

Abstract

At present, the diagnosis of many cancers relies on thesubjective interpretation of morphological changesin biopsy samples. This usually provides only latediagnosis. Early detection, which can provide more successful therapy, is expected to be possible by identification of tumour markers in physiological samples. Immunoassay used at present for this purpose hasseveral drawbacks. It is applicable only for knownmarkers, can usually detect only one marker at atime, and may also fail to detect a marker when there exist conditions, which may mask or prevent the interactionbetween antigen and the antibody. We havedeveloped a high performance liquid chromatography-laser induced fluorescence (HPLC-LIF) technique to detect and record simultaneously spectra andchromatograms of physiological samples, which willenable the detection of multiple ‘markers’ in a singlephysiological sample in a short time. Samples of salivaand serum from normal and oral cancer subjects have been studied with the set up. The present studies showthat body fluids like saliva and serum of normal, premalignantand malignant subjects have substantiallydifferent protein profiles. By simultaneous recording of the chromatographic peaks and correspondingfluorescence spectra, it is possible to carry outunambiguous discrimination between normal, premalignantand malignant cases even when markersare present in femto/subfemtomole quantities, whichshould assist in early diagnosis of neoplasia.