• Biomedical Science Letters
• /
• v.28 no.4
• /
• pp.223-228
• /
• 2022

It has well reported that tumor markers have many advantages like minimally invasive, convenient use, low cost but also has many limitations like low sensitivity and specificity, relevance of prognosis, low organ specificity. Although no tumor markers are ideal, many tumor markers are used for cancer diagnosis, treatment monitoring, and surveillance monitoring after treatment. We review the classification and characteristics of tumor markers according cancer types and clinical roles in current times.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.1597-1599
• /
• 2013

Since renal failure causes decrease in tumor marker excretion, use of these markers in cancer care and treatment in patients with renal insufficiency or hemodialysis is controversial. The aim of this study was to investigate differences of serum levels of tumor markers CA15-3, AFP, CA19-9 and CEA in patients with impaired renal function. A total of 100 patients referred to the Tabriz Immam Reza and Amiralmomenin hospital from June 2010 to November 2011 were selected for study. Subjects were divided to 3 groups of healthy, dialysis and renal failure but non hemodialysis cases, the last category being re-grouped based on creatinine clearance. No significant relationship between different groups in serum levels of CEA (P=0.99) and CA19-9 (P=0.29) tumor markers was found. A significant correlation was observed between serum levels of AFP (P<0.001) and CA15-3 (P<0.001) and also a tendency between creatinine clearance and CEA (r=0.05, P=0.625). Creatinine clearance significantly correlated with AFP (P<0.001, r=0.53) and CA15-3 (p=0.00, r=-0.412), but not CA19-9 (P=0.089, r=-0.171). According to results of this study it appears that use of tumor markers in patients with impaired renal function should be performed with special precautions.

• Journal of Veterinary Science
• /
• v.23 no.6
• /
• pp.89.1-89.7
• /
• 2022

It is challenging to diagnose metastatic tumors whose cellular morphology is different from the primary. We characterized canine primary pulmonary adenocarcinoma (PAC) and its xenografted tumors by histological and immunohistochemical analyses for critical diagnostic and cancer stem cell (CSC) markers. To generate a tumor xenograft model, we subsequently transplanted the tissue pieces from the PAC into athymic nude mice. Immunohistochemical examination was performed for diagnostic (TTF-1, Napsin A, and SP-A) and CSC markers (CD44 and CD133). The use of CSC markers together with diagnostic markers can improve the detection and diagnosis of canine primary and metastatic adenocarcinomas.

• Biomedical Science Letters
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.76-86
• /
• 2018

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers affecting women worldwide. Although the survival rate of breast cancer has increased, breast cancer still results in a high mortality rate. Breast cancer deaths are caused by metastasis that occurs in organ dysfunction. Recently, there have been many studies on circulating tumor cells (CTCs), which are related to breast cancer metastasis in the blood. Recent studies have demonstrated that some CTCs do not express epithelial markers. Therefore, in this study, total RNA was extracted from blood without separating out the CTCs, and the characteristics of the CTCs were analyzed by RT-qPCR. Cyclin D1 and twist-related protein 1 (TWIST1) are well-known markers for predicting the prognosis of patients with breast cancer. However, few studies have demonstrated the use of CCND1 and TWIST1 in blood as diagnostic and prognostic markers of breast cancer. In this study, patients with late-stage breast cancer had overexpressed CCND1 and TWIST1 than patients with different stages of breast cancer (P < 0.001 and P < 0.01, respectively). The relative expression level of CCND1 in survivors was higher than in patients who died (P = 0.06). The relative expression level of TWIST1 in survivors was lower than in patients who died (P = 0.08). Overall CCND1 and TWIST1 were not useful as markers for the diagnosis of breast cancer through blood. However, we showed the possibility of using CCND1 and TWIST1 as prognostic markers, and a large-scale study is needed to confirm the usefulness of these prognostic markers.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.17 no.3
• /
• pp.1507-1512
• /
• 2016

Background: Risk of developing breast cancer increases with short breastfeeding and the use of hormones. The prognosis of breast cancer is better if the tumours are hormone receptor positive. Since breast feeding affects estrogen and progesterone receptors, we wanted to investigate how such reproductive factors as breastfeeding and the use of hormones interact with known prognostic markers and specific tumour characteristics in women with breast cancer. Materials and Methods: A total of 250 women treated for breast cancer from a larger cohort completed a questionnaire on breastfeeding, number and age at births and use of hormones. A logistic regression analysis was made to search for connections between known prognostic markers on the one hand (type of cancer, grade, tumor size, estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor, lymphovascular invasion and DNA-ploidy) and reproductive data, breastfeeding, and hormone use on the other. Results and Conclusions: Hormone use, but not breastfeeding, was significantly associated, also on multivariate analysis, with the prognostic variable lymphovascular invasion, connected to a worse prognosis. No other hormone use or breast feeding correlations with prognostic variables were found.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
• /
• v.1 no.1
• /
• pp.153-160
• /
• 1984

The management of pineal region tumors remains controversial. This paper reports a case of pineocytoma which was attempted to improve treatment planning by the use of clinical features, computerized tomography, and markers for germ-cell tumors. A presumptive diagnosis could be made and this tumor less likely to respond to radiotherapy was subjected to primary surgery.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.14 no.7
• /
• pp.4353-4358
• /
• 2013

Introduction: Breast cancer aggressiveness can be correlated with proliferation status of tumor cells, which can be ascertained with tumor grade and Ki67 indexing. However due to lack of reproducibility, the ASCO do not recommend routine use of Ki67 in determining prognosis in newly diagnosed breast cancers. We therefore aimed to determine associations of the Ki67 index with other prognostic markers like tumor size, grade, lymph node metastasis, ER, PR and HER2neu status. Methods: A total of 194 cases of newly diagnosed breast cancer were included in the study. Immunohistochemical staining for ER, PR, HER2neu and Ki67 was performed by the DAKO envision method. Associations of the Ki67 index with other prognostic factors were evaluated both as continuous and categorical variables. Results: Mean age of the patients was 51.7 years (24-90). Mean Ki67 index was 26.9% (1-90). ER, PR, HER2neu positivity was noted in 90/194 cases (46.4%), 74/194 cases (38.1%) and 110/194 cases (56.70%) respectively. Significant association was found between Ki67 and tumor grade, PR, HER2neu positivity and lymph node status, but no link was apparent with ER positivity and tumor size. There wasan inverse relation between Ki67 index and PR positivity, whereas a direct correlation was seen with HER2neu positivity. However, high Ki67 (>30%) was associated with decreased HER2neu positivity as compared to intermediate Ki67 (16-30%). The same trend was established with lymph node metastasis. Conclusion: Our study indicates that with high grade tumors, clinical utility of ki67 is greater in combination with other prognostic markers because we found that tumors with Ki67 higher than 30% have better prognostic profile compared to tumors with intermediate Ki67 level, as reflected by slightly lower frequency of lymph node metastasis and HER2neu expression. Therefore we suggest that Ki67 index should be categorized into high, intermediate and low groups when considering adjuvant chemotherapy and prognostic stratification.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.17 no.5
• /
• pp.2655-2660
• /
• 2016

Background: Prostate cancer is the second most common male cancer and remains a leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Heterogeneity regarding recurrence, tumor progression and therapeutic response reflects the inadequacy of traditional prognostic factors and underlies interest in new genetic and molecular markers. In this work, we studied the prognostic value of the expression of 9 proteins, Ki-67, p53, Bcl-2, PSA, HER2, E-cadherin, $p21^{WAF1/Cip1}$, $p27^{Kip1}$ and $p16^{ink4a}$ in prostate cancer. Materials and Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of 50 prostate cancers diagnosed in Pathology Department of Farhet Hached Hospital, Sousse, Tunisia, during a period of 12 months. Clinico-pathological data and survival were investigated. Protein expression was analyzed by immunohistochemistry on archived material. Results: Expression or over-expression of Ki-67, p53, Bcl-2, PSA, HER2, E-Cadherin, $p21^{WAF1/Cip1}$, $p27^{Kip1}$ and $p16^{ink4a}$ was observed in 68%, 24%, 32%, 78%, 12%, 90%, 20%, 44% and 56% of cases, respectively. Overall five-year survival was 68%. A statistically significant correlation was observed between death occurrence and advanced age (p=0.018), degree of tumor differentiation (p=0.0001), perineural invasion (p=0.016) and metastasis occurrence (p=0.05). Death occurrence was significantly correlated with the expression of p53 (p=0.007), Bcl-2 (p=0.02), Ki-67 (p=0.05) and $p27^{Kip1}$ (p=0.04). Conclusions: The p53, Bcl-2, Ki-67 and $p27^{Kip1}$ proteins may be useful additional prognostic markers for prostate cancer. The use of these proteins in clinical practice can improve prognosis prediction, disease screening and treatment response of prostatic cancer.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.1685-1688
• /
• 2014

Background: CEA and CA 15.3 serum tumor markers are currently used in clinical practice for monitoring therapy. The aim of this study was to evaluate serum level of these markers among healthy females and invasive breast carcinoma (IBC) patients and to determine any relationships with clinicopathological factors. Materials and Methods: 60 Iranian females were enrolled in this study, 30 healthy and 30 diagnosed with breast cancer who had not received any preoperative chemotherapy or hormone therapy. Enzyme linked immunosorbent assays were used for the quantitative determination of the cancer associated antigens, CEA and MUC1 (CA15-3). Results: The serological levels of CEA and CA15-3 ($5.0033{\pm}0.49{\mu}g/L$ and $178.1667{\pm}15.11$ U/ml) in the breast cancer patients were significantly higher (p=0.00) than the serum levels of normal controls ($1.1237{\pm}0.11{\mu}g/L$ and $21.13{\pm}3.058$ U/ml). Regarding the CEA marker, a significant correlation with grade of tumor was shown. Furthermore, there was a low correlation between CA15-3 and CEA marker with correlation coefficient r=0.08. Conclusions: Collectively, markedly high levels of CEA and CA15-3 were found in our patients, pointing to their use as additional tools after clinical diagnosis.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
• /
• v.38 no.2
• /
• pp.198-204
• /
• 2004

Tumor cell proliferation is considered to be a useful prognostic indicator of tumor aggressiveness and tumor response to therapy but in vitro measurement of individual proliferation is complex and tedious work. PET imaging provides a noninvasive approach to measure tumor growth rate in situ. Early approaches have used $^{18}F$-FDG or methionine to monitor proliferation status. These 2 tracers detect changes in glucose and amino acid metabolism, respectively, and therefore provide only an indirect measure of proliferation status. More recent studies have focused on DNA synthesis itself as a marker of cell proliferation. Cell lines and tissues with a high proliferation rate require high rates of DNA synthesis. $[^{11}C]Thymidine$ was the first radiotracer for noninvasive imaging of tumor proliferation. The short half-life of $^{11}C$ and rapid metabolism of $[^{11}C]Thymidine$ in vivo make the radiotracer less suitable for routing use. Halogenated thymidine analogs such as 5-iodo-2-deoxyuridine (IUdR) can be successfully used as cell proliferation markers for in vitro studies because these compounds are rapidly incorporated into newly synthesized DNA. IUdR has been evaluated as a potential in vivo tracer in nuclear medicing but the image qualify and the calculation of proliferation rates are impaired by its rapid in vivo degradation. Hence, the thymidine analog $3'-deoxy-3'-^{18}F-fluorothymidine$ (FLT) was recently introduced as a stable proliferation marker with a suitable nuclide half-life and stable in vivo. $[^{18}F]FLT$ is phosphorylated to 3-fluorothymidine monophosphate by thymidine kinase 1 and reflects thymidine kinase 1 activity in proliferating cell. $[^{18}F]FLT$ PET is feasible in clincal use and well correlates with cellular proliferation. Choline is a precursor for the biosynthesis of phospholipids (in particular, phosphatidylcholine), which is the essential component of all eukaryotic cell membranes and $[^{11}C]choline$, which is a new marker for cellular proliferation.