Immobilized Datura stramonium agglutinin column chromatography, a novel method to discriminate the urinary hCGs of patients with invasive mole and choriocarcinoma from those of normal pregnant women and patients with hydatidiform mole.

Datura stramonium agglutinin (DSA) binds the asparagine-linked sugar chains commonly found in the human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) purified from urine of patients with invasive mole or choriocarcinoma, but not in that of normal pregnant women or patients with hydatidiform mole. With the use of an immobilized DSA column, a novel method to discriminate urinary hCGs from various trophoblastic diseases was developed.