CA 242, a new tumour marker for pancreatic cancer: a comparison with CA 19-9, CA 50 and CEA

Abstract

The serum expression of a novel tumour marker, CA 242, defined by monoclonal antibody C 242, was studied in 179 patients with pancreatic cancer. The results were compared with CA 19-9, CA 50 and CEA. CA 242 is a carbohydrate closely related, but not identical, to CA 19-9 and CA 50. The overall sensitivity of the CA 242 assay was 74%: 55% in stage I, 83% in stage II-III and 78% in stage IV disease. The specificity calculated from 112 patients with benign diseases was 91%. CA 19-9 had a higher sensitivity of 83%, but the specificity was only 81%. When comparing the markers by receiver operating characteristic analysis, the sensitivities were almost identical at all specificity levels. The CA 242 level was elevated in 7%, 15% and 7% of patients with benign pancreatic, biliary and liver disease respectively. The corresponding figures for CA 19-9 were 19%, 28% and 15% respectively. The sensitivity of CA 242 was higher than that of CA 50 and CEA at all specificity levels. In conclusion, tumour marker CA 242 seems to be a useful diagnostic tool for the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, and is an alternative to CA 19-9. The advantage of CA 242 over CA 19-9 is its higher specificity when using the recommended cut-off levels of the assays.

Serum biomarkers for improved diagnostic of pancreatic cancer: a current overview

“…A total of nine articles describe the diagnostic value of CA 242 for pancreatic cancer during the past 20 years. Its diagnostic performance is generally thought to be inferior to that of CA 19-9 and CA 50, but Wu et al (2006) showed an almost similar performance on 48 carcinomas and 93 matched controls with 74% sensitivity and 91% specificity (Haglund et al 1994). Jiang et al (2004a) observed even superior values with 82% sensitivity and 93% specificity in a larger study group of 96 carcinomas and 200 controls.…”

Comparative Study of Carbohydrate Antigen 195 and Carcinoembryonic Antigen for the Diagnosis of Pancreatic Carcinoma

“…The results achieved in the present work are in accordance with those of other authors [10], who reported a similar sensitivity of CA195 relative to the stage of the disease. In contrast, several studies have described the greatest sensitivity for CA19-9 or CA242 for identifying unresectable or large pancreatic carcinomas [35][36][37][38].…”

Molecular versus Conventional Markers in Pancreatic Cancer

“…Other tumor-associated antigens such as Dupan-2, TPA, and CA 50 generally have a lower accuracy than CA 19-9 [14], However, a recent study of CA 50 [15] reported increased CA 50 serum levels in 96% of pan creatic cancer cases and in 36% of chronic pancreatitis cases. CA 50 levels combined with signs and symptoms of the patients reached a sensitivity of 91 % and a specificity of 9 5%.…”