Serum thymidine kinase 1 measurement in health check-up

Objective To evaluate the utility of serum thymidine kinase 1 (STK1) in health screening. Methods A total of 8896 adults who participated in health check-up during November 2009 and November 2010 were tested for STK1 by using sensitive chemiluminescence's dot blot assay. Results The level of STK1 of group A (STK1>2 pmol/L) was much higher than that of the group B (STK1<2 pmol/L) [(5.47±4.23) vs (0.62±0.48) pmol/L; t=11.90, P=0.00]. The STK1 level was not correlated with gender.However, the mean age of individuals in the group A was higher than that in the group B [(48.2±12.0) vs (41.8±12.3) years; t= 5.37, P=0.00]. The positive detection rate of STK1 was 1.2% (108/8896). In the group A, there were 1.9% pre- or post-treatment malignancy, 27.8% pre-malignant tumor or benign disease, 36.0% nontumorous proliferation disease, 14.8% hepatitis B virus /HP infection, 10.2% fatty liver, and 9.3% other diseases.No pre-treatment malignancy and pre-malignancy were found in the group B. Conclusion STK1 measurement could reflect the situation of cell proliferation and predict the risk of any type of malignancy. Key words: Thymidine kinase; Physical examination; Neoplasms; Mass screening