The Value of Serum CA19-9,CA242 and CA125 in the Diagnosis and Prognosis of Pancreatic Cancer

To evaluate the value of single or combined CA19-9,CA242 and CA125 measurement in the diagnosis and prognosis of pancreatic cancer,the serum levels of CA19-9,CA242 and CA125 in 105 pre-operative pancreatic cancers patients,70 non-pancreatic malignancies and 30 benign pancreatic diseases were measured.The results showed that the sensitivity of CA19-9 alone was the highest in the pancreatic cancers,but the specificity of CA19-9 was significantly lower than that of CA242 and CA125(P0.01).The combination of CA242 and CA125 could increase the specificity to 92%.In the pancreatic cancers with positive CA242 expression,the survival time was remarkably shorter than that of negative CA242 patients(P0.05).The survival time in the pancreatic cancers with more than two positive expressions of three tumor markers was significantly shorter than that of patients with only one or no marker positive expression(P0.05).These results indicated that the diagnostic rate of CA19-9 in the pancreatic cancer was better than that of CA242 and CA19-9.The combination of CA242 and CA125 test can improve the diagnostic specificity.High levels of serum markers are associated with advanced stage of the disease.Patients with two or three positive markers of CA19-9,CA242 and CA125 simultaneously have shorter survival time.