Aim: Childhood cancer remains one of the main cause of death in the pediatric population. Amino acids (AAs) level alterations in plasma are considered to play a role in carcinogenesis and further course of the disease.
Methods: Seventy-seven children with cancer, including 47 with hematological and 30 with solid tumors were enrolled in this study and compared with healthy children. Twenty-two plasma-free AAs were determined by HPLC with fluorometric detection.
Results: The results revealed significant decrease in glutamine levels for oncological patients and significant increase in aspartic acid, glutamic acid, asparagine, serine, citrulline, alanine, GABA, tryptophan, methionine, valine, phenylalanine and isoleucine levels in cancer children versus control.
Conclusion: Plasma-free AA profile as a biomarker, which combines metabolic and clinical data, as an innovative and interdisciplinary approach, may allow for faster detection of tumor occurrence, and in the future for monitoring patient during treatment, and possible prediction of cancer recurrence.
Keywords: amino acid profile; cancer; cancer screening; children; hematological malignancies; metabolomics; personalized medicine; solid tumors; treatment monitoring; tumors markers.