Squamous cell carcinoma antigen in the serum of oromaxillary cancer

Squamous cell carcinoma antigen in patients with cancer of the larynx

“…The sensitivity of SCC Ag at diagnosis according to the site of the carcinoma is: 44–52% in cervical carcinoma, 2 , 8 20–46% in head and neck cancer, 9−13 28–57% in lung cancer, 14−17 44% in epidermoid carcinoma of the anal canal, 18 39% in oesophageal epidermoid carcinoma, 19 36–62% in oral carcinoma, 22−24 and 24–56% in laryngeal cancer .20 , 23 In our group the sensitivity of SCC Ag at diagnosis was 26%. The observed low diagnostic value might be due to the fact that the antibodies were raised against a uterine cervical carcinoma cell line, 13 the immunoprotective environment demonstrated in laryngeal lesions, 24 or the relatively low cellularity even in advanced stages of head and neck cancers, which probably leads to limited circulating levels of the antigen .14 One should also remember about non‐specific elevations of SCC Ag level, which may occur in patients with benign diseases of the skin, 4 lungs 5 and renal failure .16 Just like other tumour markers, it would be inappropriate to use SCC Ag for screening of patients for laryngeal cancer.…”

“…We also found statistically significant higher SCC Ag levels in more advanced stages. It was mainly due to involvement of regional lymph nodes, just as in anal canal cancer .18 The relation of SCC Ag to the course of the disease has been described in cervical 2 and head and neck 12 , 22 , 26 , 27 cancers, but the most important feature seems to be the correlation with the recurrence of cancer. In cervical cancer 28 the level of TA‐4 increased in 15 out of 17 patients with recurrent disease and the appearance of TA‐4 proceeded other clinical signs by 1–14 months (mean 3.6 months).…”

“…Subsequently, commercial radioimmunoassay and enzyme immunoassay were developed to measure the level of SCC Ag in human serum or plasma. So far it has been measured in tumours of the cervix, head and neck, lungs, oesophagus, rectum and skin .4−29 The purpose of this study was to determine the usefulness of SCC Ag in patients with cancer of the larynx.…”

Serum Levels of Squamous Cell Carcinoma Antigen and Ovarian Carcinoma Antigen (CA 125) in Patients with Benign and Malignant Diseases of the Uterine Cervix

“…Some authors have studied SCC in other types of squa mous cancers such as lung, oesophagus and skin [4][5][6], Petrelli et al [7] measured SCC levels before and during therapy in 33 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal. The sensitivity of the SCC determination was 76%, the specificity was 86%, and the positive predic tive value was 62%.…”

“…This antigen was present in the serum of 29% of patients with stage I and in 89% of patients with stage IV cervical squamous cell cancer. The SCC levels have also been determined in squamous cell cancer from nongynecological sources such as the lung, oesophagus, skin and rectum [4][5][6][7][8], Levels of SCC in these patients were increased significantly above the normal range.…”