Carcinoma‐associated mucin serum markers CA M26 and CA M29: Efficacy in detecting and monitoring patients with cancer of the breast, colon, ovary, endometrium and cervix

Abstract

Two recently developed monoclonal antibody (MAb)-based anti-mucin assays, CA M26 and CA M29, were studied in 250 cancer patients and compared to 3 well-established marker tests, viz., CA 125, CA 15.3 and SCC, in order to assess their clinical usefulness as serum tumor markers. Pre-treatment sera were obtained from patients with predominantly low-stage epithelial malignancies comprising 200 adenocarcinomas (of the ovary, endometrium, breast and large intestine) and 50 squamous-cell carcinomas (of the uterine cervix). Pretreatment sera of 50 patients with benign ovarian tumors were included to evaluate levels in benign disease, CA M26 and CA M29 cut-off levels were established in 89 healthy controls. In patients with adenocarcinomas, overall positivity for CA M29 was 24%, ranging from 10% in breast cancer to 60% in ovarian cancer. Overall positivity was highest for CA 125 (30%) and lowest for CA M26 (18%) with CA M29 (24%) being similar to CA 15.3 (25%). In adenocarcinomas the combined CA M26-CA M29 assays equalled results obtained with the CA 125-CA 15.3 combination (33% vs. 36%). Elevation of 2 or more markers was highly indicative of advanced disease (p less than 0.025). A majority of positive patients showed either CA M26 or CA M29 elevations, indicating that both antibodies detect distinct epitopes. After adjustment for tumor site and stage, the profile of CA M26 as a single marker differed significantly from the profiles of CA 125 and of CA M29. CA M26 was frequently (32%) elevated in patients with squamous-cell carcinoma of the cervix and CA M26 levels were often independently elevated. CA M26 seems to be valuable as an additional marker in breast cancer and perhaps as a new marker in cervical cancer. CA M29 may be useful in ovarian cancer in addition to CA 125.

Is there a correlation between tumor marker panel and tumor size and histopathology in well staged patients with borderline ovarian tumors?

“…MUC‐1 is expressed at the apical surface of most glandular epithelia. It is widely used as a tumor marker for breast cancer, but high serum concentration may also be found in patients with ovarian cancer (16), (17). Serum CA 15‐3 was >32 U/ml in 57.1% of ovarian carcinoma patients, and in detail in 63.9% of patients with non‐mucinous and 16.7% of those with mucinous malignancies (18).…”

Glycoprotein Changes in Tumours: A Renaissance in Clinical Applications

“…Changes in the lung have also been correlated with mRNA levels of several MUC genes [59], and the levels of mRNA of a number of other MUC genes have been found increased in different cancer tissues (recently reviewed in [60]). Elevated serum levels of CA15-3 [35] and other mucins have been reported in patients with lung, pancreatic, colon, breast and ovary cancer [61]. MRS studies have looked at ovary biopsies where the Fuc IIa and IIb cross-peaks, discussed above for colon studies, correlate with increased tumorigenesis [6].…”

“…The amount of each sequence present in tumours and cell lines can now be explored by magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) using easy to obtain twodimensional MRS images from fine-needle aspirates of tumours or cancer cell lines. Studies so far have shown different patterns of fucosylation dependent on the stage of cancer [5,61. This is an exciting new development in tumour diagnosis which we discuss here in the context of our knowledge about tumourassociated oligosaccharide changes.…”

Proteomic and cytokine plasma biomarkers for predicting progression from colorectal adenoma to carcinoma in human patients

“…To date, no blood biomarkers with high sensitivity or specificity for potentially curable early stage CRC have been validated for clinical use, even though numerous reports have demonstrated that CRC is associated with changes in the blood proteome [4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Currently, apart from direct macroscopic detection, there are two indirect diagnostic tools to detect CRC: one is a stool-based approach such as DNA testing [5] while the other involves testing blood levels of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA).…”