Assessment of serum CYFRA 21-1 in lung cancer

✍ Scribed by Masato Muraki; Yuji Tohda; Takashi Iwanaga; Hisao Uejima; Yukio Nagasaka; Shigenori Nakajima

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 391 KB
• Volume: 77
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-543X
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0142(19960401)77:7<1274::aid-cncr7>3.0.co;2-i

✦ Synopsis

BACKGROUND.

Cytokeratins are the intermediate filaments of the cytoskeletal protein located in normal epithelia, tumor, and cultured cells. Recently, a fragment of cytokeratin subunit 19, referred to as CYFRA 21-1, detected in the serum OF patients with nonsmall cell lung cancer, has been reported as a new tumor marker. This article reports the results of a study of serum fragment CYFRA 21-1, measured by immunoradiometric assay, as a marker of lung cancer.

METHODS.

One hundred fourteen patients with primary lung cancer, 6 patients with malignant solid tumor, 116 patients with a variety of benign diseases, and 29 normal individuals were entered into this study. Serum CYFRA 21-1 levels were obtained by means of immunoradiomentric assay using the CYFRA 21-1 EIA (enzyme immunoassay) kit. In addition, we studied other tumor markers, including carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC), and neuron specific enolase (NSE), as a means of lung cancer diagnosis.

RESULTS.

The diagnostic acuracy and sensitivity of serum CYFRA 21-1 for the detection of lung cancer were highest among the four markers. The serum CYFRA 21-1 levels were most highly elevated in lung carcinoma patients (in particular UICC Stage N patients) across different histologic types and attained 85.1% sensitivity when using a threshold of 3.5 nglmL. The diagnostic sensitivity for detecting lung carcinoma was substantially enhanced by means of combined assays of CY-FRA 21-1 with CEA overall for lung cancer, with SCC for squamous cell carcinoma, and with CEA for adenocarcinoma.