Comparison of a new tumour marker CA 242 with CA 19-9, CA 50 and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) in digestive tract diseases

Abstract

The levels of CA 242, a new tumour marker of carbohydrate nature, were measured in sera of 185 patients with malignancies of the digestive tract and of 123 patients with benign digestive tract diseases. High percentages of elevated CA 242 levels (greater than 20 U ml-1) were recorded in patients with pancreatic and biliary cancers (68%). The sensitivity was somewhat lower than that of CA 19-9 (76%) and CA 50 (73%). On the other hand, in benign pancreatic and biliary tract diseases the CA 242 level was less frequently elevated than the CA 19-9 and CA 50 levels. The serum CA 242 concentration was increased in 55% of patients with colorectal cancer. CA 242 detected more Dukes A-B carcinomas (47%) than CEA (32%), whereas CEA was more often elevated (71% vs 59%) in Dukes C-D carcinomas. CA 242 was slightly elevated (ad 41 U ml-1) in 10% of patients with benign colorectal diseases. CA 50 and CA 19-9 had lower sensitivities than CA 242 using the recommended cut-off values. When cut-off levels based on relevant benign colorectal diseases were used, the sensitivities of these markers were similar and somewhat higher than that of CEA. Less than half of patients with gastric cancer (44%) had an elevated CA 242 serum level. CA 242 is a promising new tumour marker, that may be of additional value in the diagnosis of pancreatic and biliary, as well as colorectal cancer, and may be useful in monitoring cancer patients after radical surgery.

Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis of the tumour markers CEA, CA 50 and CA 242 in pancreatic cancer; results from a prospective study

“…The CEA test and CA 50 test performed equally well at high and low specificity levels (Figure 1). This analysis shows that the CA 242 test has a clear advantage over CEA and CA 50 because of its higher specificity, confirming thus the results of previous studies (Haglund et al, 1989;Kuusela et al, 1991;Nilsson et al, 1992;Pasanen et al, 1992).…”

“…Serum CEA and CA 50 are among the most intensively studied tumour markers and their role as reference markers is established (Kalser et al, 1978;Hansen et al, 1974;Lindholm et al, 1983;Jalanko et al, 1985;Masson et al, 1990;Haglund et al, 1992). CA 242 is a novel tumour marker which has proved promising because of its high specificity (Haglund et al, 1989;Kuusela et al, 1991;Nilsson et al, 1992;Pasanen et al, 1992). Evaluation of these marker studies is often difficult because of variance and heterogenity of the reference populations, and perhaps this is one reason why the role of these markers in pancreatic cancer is not yet clearly established.…”

Prognostic Value of Preoperative Serum CA 242 in Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma Cases

“…It was proved that CA 242 is involved in tumor invasion and metastasis in case of gastric, pancreatic and colorectal cancer, high CA 242 is associated with poor prognosis (Kuusela et al, 1991;Bünger et al, 2011;Rana et al, 2012). To date, however, there have been few studies regarding CA 242 in EC mainly because of its low sensitivity and specificity, resulting in low detection rates and unacceptable false-positive diagnoses.…”

The role of CA-242 and CEA in surveillance following curative resection for colorectal cancer

“…When used in combination with CEA, CA-19-9 (Quentmeier et al, 1987) and (Sagar et al, 1991;Ruggeri et al, 1993) have been shown to provide a gain of positivity in colorectal cancer. The recent studies of showed that it has a higher sensitivity than CA-50 in primary colorectal cancer and a low false positivity in benign liver disease (Kuusela et al, 1991;Nilsson et al, 1992). In prinary colorectal cancer, additional use of CA-242 improves the diagnostic sensitivity of CEA alone (though it still remains limited) (Roberts et al, 1992), and CA-242 has also been shown to compklment CEA monitoring of patients reiing chemotherapy for liver metasta from colorectal cancer (Ward et al, 1993 …”

“…It is evident that while CEA monitoring during the followup of patients after potentially curative surgery is valuable it lacks the sensitivity and specificity to be an infallible guide to the patient's status (Northover, 1986 (Holmgren et al, 1984), CA-19-9 (Del Villano et al, 1983), (Barghava et al, 1987) and CA-242 (Nilsson et al, 1992), all of which have been shown to be valuable in pancreatic cancer (Kuusela et al, 1991;Taylor et al, 1992;Pasanen et al, 1993) and have been suggested as markers in colorectal cancer. When used in combination with CEA, CA-19-9 (Quentmeier et al, 1987) and (Sagar et al, 1991;Ruggeri et al, 1993) have been shown to provide a gain of positivity in colorectal cancer.…”