The objectives of this study were to investigate: 1) the activity of
pseudocholinesterase (PChE) in patients with
uterine cervical cancer in different stages (uterine cervical
carcinoma in stages II b and III and recurrent cervical
carcinoma in stages III and IV a,b) and to compare it to the
enzyme activity in patients with benign tumour of the uterus, and 2) the effects of
radiotherapy on
enzyme activity in those patients with uterine cervical
carcinoma for which the chosen treatment was radical
radiotherapy. Thirty patients with uterine cervical
carcinoma in stages II b and III (Group A), sixteen patients with recurrent cervical
carcinoma in stages III and IV a,b (Group B) and thirty-eight patients with benign tumours of the uterus (control, Group C) were evaluated and their PChE activity was determined prior to any treatment (pre-
therapy enzyme activity). All eighty-four patients were free of any
liver disease. The results have shown that the patients of Group A had the pre-
therapy PChE activity practically identical to those in group C, but patients of Group B had significantly lower values of PChE with respect to
enzyme activities of Groups A and C (p < 0.001). That is to say, PChE activity was influenced by the extent to which the
malignancy had spread. Radical
radiotherapy (up to 8 weeks in doses higher than 50 Gy into point A; average 80 Gy) which was the chosen treatment only for patients from group A did not cause a significant inhibition of PChE activity in any patients in comparison with their control values. With regard to the role of PChE in hydrolysis of
succinylcholine, our results about the influence of the malignant disease and the
radiotherapy on PChE activity are clinically significant.