Tenascin in cerebrospinal fluid is a useful biomarker for the diagosis of brain tumor

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Tenascin, an extracellular matrix glycoprotein, has been reported to be expressed predominantly on glioma tissue in the central nervous system, both in a cell associated and an excreted form. Recently, a highly sensitive sandwich type enzyme immunoassay for quantitative determination of tenascin was developed. In the present study, the amount of tenascin in cerebrospinal fluid was measured. An increase of tenascin in CSF (>100 ng/ml) was found in patients with an astrocytic tumor. The concentration was significantly higher (>300ng/ml) in high grade astrocytoma (anaplastic astrocytoma and glioblastoma) and a further increase (>1000 ng/ml) was found in cases of CSF dissemination of high grade astrocytoma. On the other hand, tenascin concentrations were less than 100 ng/ml in non-astrocytic tumors and non-neoplastic neurological diseases, expect meningeal dissemination of tumor cells, meningeal stimulation by infection, and subarachnoid hemorrhage. In cases of treated astrocytoma in remission, tenascin was negligble (<100 ng/ml) in the CSF.The measurement of tenascin in CSF is useful for differential diagnosis of brain tumors and monitoring of astrocytic tumors.