Cancer Treatment Today

Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is a glycoprotein whose serum concentration is often elevated in cancers of the gastrointestinal tract, breast, lung and in gynecological malignancies (Tuxen et al. 1999). CEA is elevated in approximately 34–37% of the patients with ovarian cancer and more often in mucinous (88%) than in non-mucinous (19%) cancers (Bast et al. 1984, Tholander et al. 1990, Stenman et al. 1995, Tuxen et al. 1995). Serial CEA determinations

Determination of HER-2/neu status has thus taken on great importance in the routine work-up of breast cancer in the pathology laboratory:over-expression of the protein product of HER-2/neu gene is usually a direct consequence of gene amplification, in which multiple copies of the gene appear throughout the genome. The two most widely used technologies are immunohistochemistry (IHC) and FISH, because these two techniques are ideal for use on paraffin

The Serum HER-2/neu Test is a test that can track a woman's HER-2/neu level once she is diagnosed with MBC regardless of whether the treatment is hormone therapy, chemotherapy or trastuzumab-based therapy because it is a serum biomarker for HER-2/neu positive tumors. Recent clinical studies have also shown that up to 40% of breast cancer patients who had HER-2/neu negative tumors at first diagnosis later became HER-2/neu positive.(iv) The Serum HER-2/neu