Low frequency and low level of elevation of serum CA 72-4 in human carcinomas in comparison with established tumor markers

✍ Scribed by Dr. James T. Wu; Pam Carlisle

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 558 KB
• Volume: 6
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0887-8013
• DOI: 10.1002/jcla.1860060112

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

We evaluated a new circulating tumor marker, CA 72‐4, by comparing its frequency of appearance and level of elevation with other established tumor markers in serial serum specimens from patients with various carcinomas. We found that CA 72‐4, though highly expressed and widely found in various tumor tissues, is present at low concentration and frequency in the serum. In breast, colon, ovarian, and pancreatic carcinomas, only 21%, 30.9%, 16%, and 26.5% of specimens, respectively, showed elevated CA 72‐4. When elevated, the level of elevation was also low, much lower than that of the dominant markers. Poor response of CA 72‐4 to therapy was especially noticeable in serial specimens. In most cases, the CA 72‐4 remained normal for the entire series while other markers remained at elevated levels. However, changes of the level of CA 72‐4 usually paralleled those of other markers but at a much lower concentration. Simultaneous measurement of CA 72‐4 and CA 19‐9 appears useful to differentiate colorectal from pancreatic carcinomas when they all contained elevated levels of CA 19‐9. There was a much higher ratio of CA 72‐4 to CA 19‐9 with colon than with pancreatic and other carcinomas (247 ± 524 vs. 4.7 ± 6.8).