engleski

Ca 19-9: Is there a role for potential new biomarker for medullary thyroid cancer?

In the recent years, knowledge about cancer biomarkers has increased tremendously providing great opportunities for improving the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of cancer patients. In clinical practice, the levels of serum calcitonin, and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) are important during follow-up for patients with medullary thyroid cancer (MTC). Carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA 19-9), routinely used in the monitoring of pancreatic, hepatobiliary, and colon carcinoma, also has been detected in the tissue of - 6% of MTCs. However, its presence has never been reported in the serum of these patients. We report seven cases of MTC presenting with elevated CA 19-9 serum levels (average level: 145 IU/l and normal range: <37 IU/l). All patients were Caucasians of European origin, (two males and five females ; age range: 45–67 years), without any clinical findings of gastrointestinal cancer or inflammation. Additionally, the immunostaining of the MTC tissue showed positive result for calcitonin and CEA and strongly positive staining for CA 19-9. The future of cancer management lie in the use of biomarkers that offer the potential to identify the cancer years before it is either visible or symptomatic. Exploring the presence of these markers that does not require the tumour tissue to detect them, but are secreted by cancer cells into the blood stream will not only facilitate easy detection, but will also be candidates for population based screening. A comprehensive understanding of the relevance of each biomarker will be important to efficiently diagnose the disease and provide appropriate strategies in the multiple therapeutic alternatives currently available that are likely to benefit to the cancer patients.

Ca 19-9; medullary thyroid cancer

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