Thesis (doctoral)--Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg im Breisgau, 2004.

Introduction: Immunochemical methods have significant importance in biomedical research. The benefit of immunochemical methods is their high sensitivity and accuracy. The aim of the work was to use immunochemical methods in investigation of cancer biomarkers and degenerative diseases. A total of four studies were performed. Two studies were focused on the search for new biomarkers of prostate cancer, the third study was focused on evaluation of FGF23 in patients with hyperparathyroidism, and the fourth study looked at the assessment of hyaluronic acid in synovial fluid of patients with knee gonarthrosis. Methods and patients: Study 1: Concentrations of Chromogranin A, Endoglin, TIMP-1 and thymidine kinase 1 (TK1) in serum and Endoglin, SPINK-1, Annexin, TIMP-1 in urine were measured in 58 patients with the (mean age 68 years, range 45 - 82 years) with clinically diagnosed prostate cancer and in 30 healthy individuals with the (mean age 64 years, range: 55 - 78 years) without clinically relevant urological history and PSA values in the reference range. Subsequently, serum TK1 levels were measured in 169 patients (mean age 62 years, range 45- 82 years) with prostate cancer and in a control group of 39 healthy men (mean age 61 years, range 54-78 years). The TK1 assay was also used to determine the...