A comparison of high performance gel permeation chromatography and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy in the analysis of plasma from normal subjects and cancer patients

Abstract High Performance Gel Permeation Chromatography (GPC) was evaluated as an alternative to the more expensive Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectros-copy technique presented by Fossel and co-workers (1) for cancer detection using human plasma. These two techniques show a biphasic relationship which can be explained on the basis of the relative amounts of the lipoprotein levels present in the plasma and a good correlation (Table 1) with total triglyceride concentrations obtained from standard blood tests. The major difference in the GPC elution-profiles (254 nm) of plasma from normal individuals and that from cancer patients occurred in the peak eluting at the void volume. This peak has a retention time consistent with very low density lipoprotein (VLDL) and is elevated in most cancer patients and in normal patients with triglyceride levels greater than 200 mg/ml. The use of these techniques as a screening test for cancer in an asymptomatic population needs further evaluation.