Tissue polypeptide specific antigen in the follow-up of ovarian and cervical cancer patients

Abstract

This retrospective study includes 425 serological examinations of 40 patients with epithelial ovarian cancer and 356 serological examinations of 33 patients with squamous cell cervical cancer. The serum levels of the tumor markers tissue polypeptide specific antigen (TPS), carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA 125) and squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC) were determined. Cutoff values of 93 U/l for TPS, 3 μg/l for SCC and 37 U/ml for CA 125 were selected according to the 95th percentile of serum concentrations measured in healthy control patients. For ovarian cancer sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) of TPS were 67%, 84%, 59% and 90%, respectively. In 27 patients with recurrent ovarian cancer, CA 125 and TPS showed lead time effects in 8 and 11 cases, respectively. The combination of CA 125 and TPS provided lead time in 14 cases of recurrent disease with a time range from 1 to 23 months (median 3.9 months). In cervical cancer, TPS showed a sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV of 64%, 90%, 85% and 68%, respectively. In 16 patients with recurrent cervical cancer, SCC and TPS showed lead time effects in 7 and 8 cases, respectively. The combination of SCC and TPS provided lead time effects in 12 cases with a time range from 0.5 to 6 months (median 3.5 months). Our data indicate that TPS is a valuable tool in the follow‐up of patients with ovarian or cervical cancer. However, TPS does not appear to be adequate to replace tumor markers CA 125 and SCC. Int. J. Cancer (Pred. Oncol.) 79:241–244, 1998.© 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

The clinical value of serum concentrations of cancer antigen 125 in patients with primary fallopian tube carcinoma

“…24 We defined the lead time as the time between a continuous rise in the serum CA 125 level without a change in direction of at least 20% for two consecutive evaluations of the marker above the cut-off value and the time of clinical or radiologic evidence of recurrent disease. 27 Evaluating the specificity of serum tumor markers, elevated serum CA 125 levels due to lead-time effects were excluded.…”

Tissue polypeptide specific antigen in the post therapeutic evaluation of patients with ovarian and colorectal cancer

“…Tissue polypeptide specific antigen (TPS) is a differentiation and proliferation marker that is elevated in a variety of cancers like head and neck cancer (1), gynecological cancer (2,3), prostatic cancer (4,5), gastrointestinal cancer (6) and breast cancer (7). Recently the trend in the use of tumor markers is to use multiple markers to increase the sensitivity of detection of metastases.…”