Update regarding the role of biomarkers in early diagnosis of non-small cell bronchopulmonary cancer
Dragomir, A.; Moldoveanu, E.; Mihălţan, F.
Pneumologia 60(1): 7 9-7,13
2011
ISSN/ISBN: 2067-2993 PMID: 21548194 Document Number: 648053
Early diagnosis of lung cancer by non-invasive methods has a low sensibility: 60% of peripheral cancers could be diagnosed by computed tomography, 60% of the central ones by sputum cytology. More specific for detecting central microinvasive lesions could be bronchoscopy with autofluorescence, but this is a method with a low number of patients to be performed on, because of the specific technique. For all these reasons there are some other methods to be tried in this respect--one of them is to find one or more molecules--tumoral markers--which have to be specific in establishing the risk of developing lung cancer, to make an early diagnosis of cancer and to predict the evolution under treatment. The detecting tumoral markers in sputum, blood, bronchoalveolar lavage was not so largely explored related to the final goal--the possibility of identifying and quantifying the most specific ones for the screening of lung cancer. The present paper has as purpose to make an review of tumoral markers--"classical" markers as: CEA, NSE, TPA, beta2 microglobulina, CA 125, CA 15-3--considered not such a high sensibility and specificity for lung cancer screening versus new molecules, studied intensively as: SCC-Ag, CYFRA 21-1, ferritin, sIL-2R, CCK-BB, glycosyltransferases. Those new molecules have a higher sensibility, but also could have a higher specificity for each type of lung cancer.