Comparison of Serum Tumor Associated Material (TAM) with Conventional Biomarkers in Cancer Patients

Objective: To compare expression level of serum tumor associated materials (TAM) with several conventionalserum tumor biomarkers, eg., carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), carbohydrate antigen19-9 (CA19-9),carbohydrate antigen 15-3 (CA15-3), alpha-fetoprotein(AFP), in selected solid tumors.
Methods: Patientsdiagnosed histologically or cytologically with liver, breast, esophageal, gastric, colorectal or pancreatic cancerswere enrolled into this study. After diagnosis, the level of TAM was determined by chemical colorimetry, andlevels of conventional tumor markers was measured by chemiluminescence methods.
Results: A total of 560patients were enrolled into this study. No statistically significant difference was detected in TAM and the abovementioned tumor biomarkers in terms of their positivity and negativity ( P>0. 05).
Conclusions: Detection of TAMin liver, breast, esophageal, gastric, colorectal, and pancreatic cancer patients demonstrates a good accordancewith CEA, CA199, CA153, and AFP, thus suggesting that further study is warranted to verify whether TAMcould be a surrogate for these conventional biomarkers.