Squamous cell carcinoma antigen in the diagnosis and treatment follow-up of oral and facial squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

The squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) antigen was determined by radioimmunoassay in the serum of 40 untreated patients with SCC of the oromaxillofacial region. The mean (+/- SEM) serum concentration for these patients (3.8 +/- 0.8 ng/ml) was significantly higher than that of 52 disease-free patients coming to routine postoperative care (1.2 +/- 0.1 ng/ml) and of 74 healthy controls (1.1 +/- 0.07 ng/ml). Using a arbitrary limit of 2.2 ng/ml, pathologic serum levels of SCC were observed in 15 (38%) of 40 untreated patients, whereas only four (7.7%) of 52 tumor-free patients revealed an elevated serum SCC. Serial measurements of SCC were pretherapeutically available in 28 patients as well as during individual therapy and further follow-up. All but one of these patients had a normal serum SCC postoperatively. The authors' results demonstrate that the clinical value of SCC lies mainly in monitoring the course of the disease. Careful follow-up studies should be undertaken to determine whether serial determination of SCC is promising in early prediction of tumor reoccurrence.

The IgG1/G2 subclass shift – a sensitive, tissue non-specific marker for malignancy. Diagnostic performance with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck

“…Until now numerous tumour-derived substances have been evaluated as diagnostic indicators of tumour presence in untreated patients, but, with few exceptions, most of these direct markers proved to be only of limited clinical usefulness owing to extremely high biological variabilities, limited specificities for malignant proliferation, and low sensitivities for detecting early tumour stages. Particularly for SCC-HN no sufficiently sensitive non-invasive tumour marker was available until now (Fischbach et al, 1990). Squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC-A) was considered a promising candidate in aiding diagnosis and monitoring of patients with SCC-HN, but the diagnostic performance finally turned out to be poor.…”

“…Squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC-A) was considered a promising candidate in aiding diagnosis and monitoring of patients with SCC-HN, but the diagnostic performance finally turned out to be poor. SCC-A was described to be elevated (> 2 ng ml -1 ) in 12-15% (Walther et al, 1990), 28% (Clasen et al, 1988), 33% (Dreyfuss et al, 1992), 38% (Fischbach et al, 1990;Koch et al, 1989) or 44% (Eibling et al, 1989) of SCC-HN patients. These results are in good agreement with our own unpublished experiences, where only 26% of a total of 322 SCC-HN patients were found to be positive.…”

The prognostic value of the tumour marker Cyfra 21-1 in carcinoma of head and neck and its role in early detection of recurrent disease

“…Early studies reported very low sensitivity of various markers like CEA (carcinoembryonic antigen) (Silverman et al, 1976;Walther et al, 1990), Lipid associated sialic acid (Katopodis et al, 1982;Ropka et al, 1991) and SCC-marker (TA-4) (Calsen et al, 1990;Daver et al, 1990;Fichbach et al, 1990;Walther et al, 1990;Yoshimura et al, 1990;Ropka et al, 1991) in head and neck cancer patients. Cyfra 21-1 was reported as a new marker for non-small cell carcinoma of the lung (Pujol et al, 1993;Stieber et al, 1993;Rastel et al, 1994).…”

Serum fragment of cytokeratin subunit 19 (Cyfra) as a tumor marker in diagnosis and monitoring of treatment of oral squamous cell carcinoma

“…16,19 Recently, cytokeratin 19 fragment (Cyfra) was reported to be a new marker in non-small cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma of the lung, as well as in uterine cervex carcinoma. [7][8][9] We grouped the patients with O-SCC according to primary tumor site, T classification, N classification, clinical stage, and pathologic parameters to examine the relationship between serum Cyfra levels and each of these factors. In our study, the threshold Cyfra level was set at 2.0 ng/ml because ROC analysis showed that this threshold allowed the best sensitivityspecificity relationship.…”

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6] Tumor markers are tumormediated molecules, but are not directly produced by tumor tissue. 7,10,11 Tumor markers used in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (O-SCC) include carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), 7,8 squamous cell carcinoma-antigen (SCCA), 7,9 immunosuppressive acidic protein (IAP), 7 glutathione Stransferase-p (GST-p), 12 and dipeptidyl-peptidase (DPP). 7,10,11 Tumor markers used in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (O-SCC) include carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), 7,8 squamous cell carcinoma-antigen (SCCA), 7,9 immunosuppressive acidic protein (IAP), 7 glutathione Stransferase-p (GST-p), 12 and dipeptidyl-peptidase (DPP).…”