Extracellular superoxide dismutase, a potential extracellular biomarker candidate for prolactinoma.

To investigate whether the extracellular superoxide dismutase (EC-SOD) and manganese superoxide dismutase (Mn-SOD) level changes during prolactinoma (PRL) development. Surgical tissues from 37 female patients with PRL were tested for Mn-SOD and serum samples from such PRL patients were tested for EC-SOD level changes with Western Blot. The MnSOD level from blood cells was also investigated to show whether the Mn-SOD variation could locate tumorigenesis tissues. According to the patients' age analysis, age 20-40 years is high risk for getting PRL. There is a positive relationship between the PRL severity and EC-SOD. The Mn-SOD level from surgical tissues, but not blood cells, also shows a corresponding positive relationship to PRL severity, which indicates that elevated Mn-SOD might only happen in PRL tumorigenesis tissues. Extracellular superoxide dismutase is an extracellular protein and the serum EC-SOD could be a good candidate for the diagnoses of prolactinoma.