Subject(s)
Biomarkers, Tumor/blood , Breast Neoplasms/diagnosis , Keratins/blood , Breast Neoplasms/blood , Female , Fibrocystic Breast Disease/blood , Fibrocystic Breast Disease/diagnosis , Humans , Immunoradiometric Assay , Peptide Fragments/blood , Peptides/blood , Predictive Value of Tests , Reagent Kits, Diagnostic , Reference Values , Tissue Polypeptide AntigenABSTRACT
Preoperative serum tumour markers are currently classified as positive or negative according to a predetermined cut-off point. In the present study we examined the dynamic variation of marker levels after radical surgery of breast and colorectal cancer. CEA and CA15.3 were measured in 93 patients with breast cancer, CEA and CA19.9 in 97 patients with colorectal carcinoma before and 30 days after radical surgery. Any variation higher than 3-fold the analytical coefficient of variation of the assay was considered significant. In patients with negative preoperative marker levels a significant decrease was noted after surgery in 15.6% of cases for CEA and 27.8% for CA15.3 in breast cancer and in 46.8% for CEA and 25.7% for CA19.9 in colorectal cancer. Using both cut-off-based and dynamic criteria, we found an overall positivity rate of 19.6% for CEA and 33.3% for CA15.3 in breast cancer; 60.0% for CEA and 37.1% for CA19.9 in colorectal cancer. From the present findings we conclude that the dynamic study of perioperative variations of tumour markers is a sensitive method additional to cut-off-based criteria for the assessment of the phenotypic expression of the marker by the tumour.
Subject(s)
Antigens, Tumor-Associated, Carbohydrate/blood , Biomarkers, Tumor/blood , Breast Neoplasms/blood , Carcinoembryonic Antigen/blood , Colorectal Neoplasms/blood , Neoplasm Proteins/blood , Breast Neoplasms/surgery , Colorectal Neoplasms/surgery , Humans , Postoperative Period , Sensitivity and SpecificityABSTRACT
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most frequent malignant tumour of the liver. HCC has an incidence that changes with geographic areas (1.2-2.5% in western countries and 13-53% in Asia and Africa) as the risk of tumour bleeding. The patient arrives to the surgeon in emergency with no possibility of radical resection because of the patient's general conditions, the tumour's stage and the cirrhosis. Palliative treatments are: resection, direct suture of the bleeding tumour, artery embolization and selective binding of the hepatic artery. The Authors describe two cases of spontaneous rupture of HCC observed in the surgical department of Venice Hospital. A review of the literature is also reported.
