Clinical Evaluation of Serum Tissue Polypeptide Specific Antigen in Patients with Thyroid Carcinoma

Abstract

There is no specific marker for diagnosis of thyroid cancer with the exception of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and calcitonin for medullary thyroid carcinoma. Tissue polypeptide antigen (TPA) is known to be a diagnostic marker of malignant neoplasms. TPA is also one of the tumor markers for thyroid cancer, but serum TPA shows poor specificity because of polyclonal antibody. Tissue polypeptide specific antigen (TPS) is detected by the monoclonal antibody M3, directed at 1 of the 35 epitopes in TPA. TPS appears in proliferative tumor cells. We examined 72 patients (32 thyroid carcinoma, 20 thyroid adenoma, 5 adenomatous goiter, and 15 diffuse goiter) and 24 healthy volunteers for serum TPS, TPA, and thyroglobulin (Tg). The TPS in thyroid carcinoma was significantly higher than in healthy controls and thyroid adenoma (p < 0.05). The mean value of TPS for all diseases except thyroid carcinoma was below the cutoff value (95 U/L). The TPS sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy for thyroid carcinoma was 37.5%, 100%, and 64.9% respectively. There were no significant differences in mean values of serum Tg and TPA between thyroid carcinomas and adenomas. Positive rates of tissue TPS expression in thyroid carcinomas and adenomas were 87.5% (7/8) and 14.3% (1/7), respectively. The positive rates for serum TPS and immunoreactive TPS in the tissue correlated significantly (p < 0.0001). It is concluded that TPS is a useful marker for diagnosis of thyroid carcinoma.

Serum Cyfra 21.1 and galectin-3 protein levels in relation to immunohistochemical cytokeratin 19 and galectin-3 expression in patients with thyroid tumors

“…This finding is in general agreement with previous reports of serum cytokeratins (including Cyfra 21.1) as unreliable preoperative thyroid tumor markers (Suzuki et al 1999;Giovanella et al 2008). On the other hand, Appetecchia et al (2001) found that mean serum concentrations of cytokeratins (8, 18 and 19) in follicular and medullary thyroid carcinomas were significantly higher than in healthy controls or in patients with benign thyroid disease, suggesting the possible utility of cytokeratins in predicting the degree of malignancy.…”

Serum tissue polypeptide specific antigen as a noninvasive prognostic indicator for early recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma after curative resection

“…In this regard, TPS may be related to an increased number of tumor cells as well as the invasiveness of tumor behavior. Serum TPS has been correlated with tumor stage and recurrence and with patient survival rates in a number of other types of malignancies;13–20 however, little is known about its clinical significance in patients with HCC. To determine whether serum TPS may be a noninvasive prognostic marker for HCC, we analyzed preoperative serum TPS levels in relation to the recurrence of HCC after patients underwent curative hepatic resection.…”

Increased Serum Tissue Polypeptide Specific Antigen (TPS) in Alcoholics: A Possible Marker of Alcoholic Hepatitis

“…More recently, a monoclonal antibody has identified a particular epitope of the TPA molecule (M3, cytokeratin 18, amino acid residues 322-340), the so-called tissue-polypeptide specific antigen (TPS) (Björklund et al, 1987;Einarsson and Rydlander, 1997;Marino et al, 1992). Serum TPS is used for diagnosis, prognosis, and follow-up of a variety of epithelial malignancies (Bremer et al, 1996;Hobarth et al, 1996;Mishaeli et al, 1998;Nagler et al, 1999;Nisman et al, 1999;Polito et al, 1997;Suzuki et al, 1999;Van Dalen 1999;Zygmunt et al, 1999). TPS has a theoretically higher specificity than TPA, because TPS is more closely related to proliferation of epithelial cells (Marino et al, 1992).…”