How Many Tumor Markers Do You Know?
Discovered in 1978, tumor markers can be detected in the tumor-related substances in the blood, body fluids and tissues, and to a certain level, they can reflect the presence of certain tumors. Samplely speaking, tumor markers are used to help detect, diagnose, and manage some types of cancer: a doctor takes a sample of tumor tissue or bodily fluid and sends it to a laboratory, where various methods are used to measure the level of the tumor marker. You may hear aabout some kind of cancers,but how many tumor markers do you know?
Below are some of the five types:
1.Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA)
Found in 1965, CEA can be described as the most broad spectrum of indicators, as its rise can be seen in the colorectal cancer, stomach cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, uterus and cervical cancer, urinary tract tumors, and other malignant tumors with different degrees of positive rate. In short, CEA is most likely to rise in adenocarcinoma, followed by squamous cell carcinoma and poorly differentiated carcinoma. When there is a late tumor stage, loaded tumor, or tumor metastasis, there will be increased CEA.
2.Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP)
AFP is an ancient but excellent tumor marker, whose specificity in primary liver cancer is very high, with the positive rate of 70%. If a patient has a history of hepatitis B, and has liver mass, with AFP> 400ng / ml and for 1 month, he can be diagnosed as liver cancer. In addition to liver cancer, AFP will also be elevated in endodermal sinus cancer, teratoma, testicular cancer, ovarian cancer, gastric cancer with liver metastases. The vast majority of viral hepatitis/cirrhosis patients will also see AFP increase, but it will not over 400ng / ml. Women AFP begin to rise after pregnancy for 3 months and reach the peak during 7 to 8 months, and 3 weeks after delivery it'll return to normal level.
3. Carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA125)
The most important clinical significance of CA125 is to reflect the ovarian cancer, with positive rate of 61.4%, and CA125 is a good indicator of the treatment efficacy and recurrence of ovarian cancer. If the treatment is effective, the CA125 will decline, and once recurrence occurs, CA125 will be elevated before the symptoms.
4. Carbohydrate antigen 15-3 (CA15-3)
CA15-3 has great clinical significance in the diagnosis of breast cancer. In the early stage of breast cancer, the sensitivity is low, 30%, but in the late stage, the sensitivity is up to 80%, which has important value in the efficacy, prognosis, recurrence and metastasis diagnosis of breast cancer. Other malignant tumors also have a certain positive rate, and in the liver, gastrointestinal tract, lung, breast, ovarian and other non-malignant tumor disease, the positive rate of less than 10%.
5. Carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9)
CA19-9 is an important indicator of digestive system tumors. In pancreatic cancer, gallbladder carcinoma and cholangiocarcinoma, CA19-9 is significantly increased, especially in pancreatic cancer the positive rate is 75%.
Screening of tumor markers
No tumor markers can achieve 100% accuracy, and a tumor marker may also be associated with a variety of tumors, so in clinical we often use a coordinated screening method. Creative Diagnostics provides tumor markers elisa kits for the screening of tumor markers.
Tumor markers increase do not necessarily indicate cancer; some tumors do not secrete related proteins, so the tumor markers can not rule out the normal tumor. Reasonable application, timely monitoring, is the clinical application of tumor markers in the correct way.
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