How are tumor markers used in cancer care?
What are Tumour markers used for?
Tumor tissue (or cell) markers are found in the actual tumors themselves, typically in a sample of the tumor that is removed during a biopsy. Tumor tissue markers are used to: diagnose, stage, and/or classify cancer. estimate prognosis.
What does a tumor marker tell you?
Tumor markers are chemicals made by tumor cells that can be detected in your blood. But tumor markers are also produced by some normal cells in your body, and levels may be significantly elevated in noncancerous conditions. This limits the potential for tumor marker tests to help in diagnosing cancer.
What is the best clinical use of Tumour markers?
Monitoring disease is, perhaps, the most common clinical use of serum tumor markers. Rising trend in serum levels may detect recurrence of disease well before any clinical or radiological evidence of disease is apparent (“biochemical recurrence”).
What does it mean when tumor markers go down?
Plan your treatment. If tumor marker levels go down, it usually means the treatment is working. Help find out if a cancer has spread to other tissues. Help predict the likely outcome or course of your disease.
What are the types of tumor markers?
Types of Tumor Markers
- Prostate-specific antigen (PSA)
- Prostatic acid phosphatase (PAP)
- CA 125.
- Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA)
- Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP)
- Human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG)
- CA 19-9.
- CA 15-3.
What is a normal tumor marker?
Normal range: < 2.5 ng/ml. Normal range may vary somewhat depending on the brand of assay used. Levels > 10 ng/ml suggest extensive disease and levels > 20 ng/ml suggest metastatic disease.
What is a bad CA 125 level?
In the patient who is being evaluated for a pelvic mass, a CA 125 level greater than 65 is associated with malignancy in approximately 90% of cases. However, without an obvious pelvic mass, this association is much weaker.
What are the major limitations of tumor markers?
Some limitations of tumour markers include: A non-cancerous disease or condition can increase tumour marker levels. Some tumour markers can be high in people who do not have cancer. Some tumour markers are specific to a particular type of cancer, while others may be elevated in many types of cancer.
What are the properties of a good tumor markers?
An ideal tumor marker should be highly sensitive, specific, reliable with high prognostic value, organ specificity and it should correlate with tumor stages. However, none of the tumor markers reported to date has all these characteristics.
What conditions can raise tumor markers?
Most tumor markers are made by normal cells as well as by cancer cells; however, they are produced at much higher levels in cancerous conditions. These substances can be found in the blood, urine, stool, tumor tissue, or other tissues or bodily fluids of some patients with cancer.