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Abstract: (64887 Views)
Abstract
Introduction: Tumor markers are useful means for obtaining information about some malignant tumors whilst causing minimal inconvenience and cost.
Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the value of CA 15-3 and CEA in patients with breast carcinoma.
Materials and Methods: This retrospective study was performed on 604 patients (mean age= 47 years) who were referred for treatment to oncology departments of Ghaem and Omid hospitals of (Mashhad Iran) from 1999 to 2004. CEA (cut off, 5 ng/ml) and CA 15-3 (cut off, 40 U/ml) had been measured with radioimmunoassay method for every patient (1- 10 times).
Results: Stage I to IV were found in 25, 370, 165 and 44 patients respectively at the time of referral. With a mean follow up time of 18 months, from 560 nonmetastatic patients, 76 (13.6%) cases experienced recurrence. The sensitivity of CEA and CA 15-3 measurements in patients with overt metastasis or up to one month before the detection of recurrence were 56.4% and 90% respectively. CEA and CA 15-3 were measured 2 to 8 months before the detection of metastasis in 44 patients from which raising the levels of these markers were found in 7 (15.9%) and 23 (52.2%) cases respectively. Among 249 disease free patients who had been followed for more than 18 months, false positive levels of CEA and CA15-3 were found in 7 (2.8%) and 4 (1.7%) cases respectively.
Conclusion: Considering the low number of false positive results in recurrent free patients, both CEA and CA15-3 showed good specificity. The sensitivity of CA15-3 is good for the detection of overt metastasis. However CA15-3 has a modest sensitivity in patients with minimal disease. CEA has a much lower sensitivity compared to CA15-3. However, the positive test can confirm the result of CA15-3 in metastatic setting.
Review Paper:
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Special Received: 2014/01/14 | Accepted: 2014/01/14 | Published: 2014/01/14