Villin is an
actin-binding protein found in a few normal adult epithelia, namely epithelial cells in the digestive and urogenital tracts. Moreover,
villin production is maintained in malignant cells. We assumed that cell lysis and
necrosis of solid
tumors producing
villin might result in
villin release into blood. We analyzed the
villin content of sera from 788 patients and controls using an
enzyme-linked
immunosorbent assay. Patients and controls were classified into healthy donors, patients with benign diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, patients with
colorectal cancers, and patients with malignant nondigestive diseases. In the panel of sera analyzed, the sensitivity of the assay for
colorectal cancers was 50.5%, and its overall specificity for malignant digestive
tumors was 94.5%. Results were statistically analyzed comparing each group of sera with each other. We conclude that the presence of
villin is indicative of a pathological state in the gastrointestinal tract (P less than 0.001). Finally, we followed
villin levels after
tumor resections (60 patients). We found that the
villin level in sera remains low in remissions but is raised in recurrences. We suggest that the
villin assay may have clinical utility as a diagnostic adjunct for
adenocarcinoma of the gastrointestinal tract. It may also have some value in monitoring patients with advancing
colorectal carcinomas after resection of these
tumors.