Investigation Of the Usefulness of CYFRA 21-1 as a Tumor Marker in Squamous Cell Carcinomas of the Head and Neck

• Published in: Nippon Jibi Inkoka Gakkai Kaiho Vol. 100; no. 7; pp. 790 - 797
• Main Authors: Kawauchi, Hideyuki, Katoh, Taiji, Kataoka, Shingo, Morikawa, Shigeru, Sano, Keisuke
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; Japanese
• Published: Japan The Oto-Rhino-Laryngological Society of Japan, Inc 01.07.1997
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Antigens, Neoplasm - blood; Biomarkers, Tumor - blood; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell - diagnosis; CYFRA 21-1; Female; head and neck cancer; Head and Neck Neoplasms - diagnosis; Humans; Keratin-19; Keratins; Male; Middle Aged; tumor marker
• ISSN: 0030-6622; 1883-0854
• DOI: 10.3950/jibiinkoka.100.790

It has been demonstrated that CYFRA 21-1 (ELISA kit), which recognizes the soluble cytokeratin 19 fragment, is useful for assessing circulating tumor antigens in sera of patients with lung cancer. In this study, we compared the clinical significance of this new marker with the established squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC Ag), using sera from patients with head and neck malignant disease, healthy controls, and supernatants of established cell lines derived from squamous cell carcinomas and adenocarcinomas. The subjects were: Group A, 39 patients with malignant disease of the head and neck. Group B, 11 patients considered to be tumor-free after treatment. Group C, 67 patients with benign disease or healthy volunteers. Culture supernatants: 11 cell lines established from squamous cell carcinomas and adenocarcinomas. Serum levels of CYFRA 21-1 and SCC Ag of group A were significantly higher than those of group C. This finding suggests that CYFRA 21-1 is useful as a tumor marker as well as SCC Ag. CYFRA 21-1 and SCC Ag levels of patients in group A at the early and progressive stages of disease were comparable to the levels in group C. Both tumor markers are therefore useful for diagnosis of in the early stage of cancer. We attempted to set a cut-off level of CYFRA 21-1. The sensitivity of CYFRA 21-1 is higher than that of SCC Ag, especially in patients in the early stage of the disease. This finding indicates that the CYFRA 21-1 is preferable to SCC Ag as a tumor marker for the diagnosis of patients even in the early stages of malignant disease. The levels of CYFRA 21-1 in culture supernatants derived from tumor cell lines are higher than those of SCC Ag in all cell lines. The levels of CYFRA 21-1 are measurable, with levels varying with the cell line. There appears to be no correlation between the level of CYFRA 21-1 and the character of the cell lines, but this issue remains to be further investigated.