Authors : F. Naghshvar , Z.H. Torabizadeh and M. Ghahremani
Abstract: In breast cancer current guidelines do not recommended the routine use of serum tumor markers. Differently, we observed that CEA, CA 15.3 panel permits early detection for most relapsing patients. As high sensitivity and specificity and different cut-off values have been reported for Mucin-like Carcinoma associated Antigen (MCA), we compared MCA with the above mentioned tumor markers. In 150 breast cancer patients submitted to post-operative follow-up with tumor markers, we compared MCA (cut-off values, = 11 and = 15 U mL 1) with CEA and CA15.3 for detection of relapse. Distant metastases occurred in 12 (8%) of the 150 patients who were disease-free at the beginning of the study. MCA sensitivity with both cut-off values was higher than that of CEA or CA15.3 (65 vs 12%, 33%) and (55 vs 17%, 31% ), respectively. With cut-off = 11 U mL 1, MCA showed the lowest specificity (32%). With out-off =15 U mL 1, MCA specificity was lower than that of CEA and CA 15.3 (71 vs 95 and 96%, respectively). At both the evaluated cut-off values serum MCA sensitivity is higher than that of CEA or CA15.3 but its specificity is lower than them. These findings further support the need for prospective randomized clinical trial to assess whether post-operative follow-up with an appropriate use of serum tumor markers such as MCA can significantly improve clinical outcome of early detected relapsing patients.
F. Naghshvar , Z.H. Torabizadeh and M. Ghahremani , 2008. Post-Operative Follow-up of Breast Cancer Patients Using Serum Tumor Markers: CEA and CA15.3 vs MCA in the Early Detection of Distant Metastases. Research Journal of Biological Sciences, 3: 301-304.