Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0149521 (chronic pancreatitis)
 7,199 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Patients with pancreatic cancer usually lack signs and symptoms in the early course of the disease. Even when malignancy is suspected, differential diagnosis between benign and malignant pancreatic disorders may be difficult with current methods. An increasing interest has been focused on the utility of immunological tumour markers. CEA has been widely used since the early seventies, but the results in diagnosis of pancreatic cancer have been disappointing. Tumour marker tests for CA 19-9 and CA 50 are based on monoclonal antibodies to colonic carcinoma cell lines. CA 19-9 and CA 50 are strongly expressed in most tissue specimens from pancreatic carcinomas, but are also found in normal pancreas and benign pancreatic diseases. The CA 19-9 and CA 50 antigens are shed or released into the circulation, and are found in increased concentrations in 70-80% of patients with pancreatic cancer. Also 50-65% of patients with small resectable carcinomas have elevated CA 19-9 and CA 50 levels, although very high serum concentrations usually indicate advanced disease. Slightly elevated serum CA 19-9 and CA 50 levels are seen in some patients with benign pancreatic diseases, more often in acute than in chronic pancreatitis. Elevated values are often observed in patients with benign obstruction of the common bile duct, particularly in patients with cholangitis. In patients with jaundice of hepatocellular origin, the CA 19-9 and CA 50 levels are lower than in extrahepatic cholestasis. CA 19-9 and CA 50 have better diagnostic accuracy for pancreatic cancer than CEA, CA 125, DU-PAN-2, TPA and PSTI/TATI. However, the sensitivities and specificities of CA 19-9 and CA 50 are too low for screening of an asymptomatic population. Nevertheless, CA 19-9 and CA 50 have in our experience shown to be useful complements to other diagnostic methods in symptomatic patients with suspicion of pancreatic cancer. Combinations of different markers improve the sensitivity only slightly compared to the use of CA 19-9 or CA 50 alone. Follow-up using CA 19-9 and CA 50 is a simple and sensitive way of monitoring the postoperative course of patients with pancreatic cancer, and may give a lead time of several months for a recurrence compared to conventional methods.
 ...
PMID:Tumour markers in pancreatic cancer. 266 48

The clinical usefulness of tissue polypeptide antigen, galactosyltransferase II and pancreatic oncofetal antigen was evaluated in detecting pancreatic cancer and in differentiating this malignancy from chronic pancreatitis and other diseases (mainly of the liver and biliary tract) which may enter in differential diagnosis. TPA seems to be the most sensitive among these indices in detecting pancreatic cancer and appears to discriminate this malignancy quite satisfactorily from chronic pancreatitis. It is also frequently pathological in a number of other diseases and is influenced by the presence of liver dysfunction. GT II and POA do not grossly differ from TPA in specificity, but they appear to be less sensitive. Both are frequently pathological in hepato-biliary diseases. All these markers seem, therefore, to be of limited value in the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
 ...
PMID:Tissue polypeptide antigen, galactosyltransferase isoenzyme II and pancreatic oncofetal antigen serum determination: role in pancreatic cancer diagnosis. 314 3

The great progress made in imaging techniques over the past few years has not resulted in an improvement in terms of earlier diagnosis of exocrine pancreatic cancer. The search for a non-invasive diagnostic tool, capable of yielding an early diagnosis, has led to the development of a series of serum tumour markers. This article discusses the clinical evaluation of SPan-1 and its comparison with established markers such as CA 19.9, CEA, TPA and CA 242. The markers were tested in preoperative serum samples collected from 46 patients operated on for ductal carcinoma of the pancreas, 20 patients with chronic pancreatitis and 23 patients with other digestive neoplasms. Sensitivity, specificity and diagnostic accuracy for pancreatic cancer were as follows: [table: see text] The antigenic determinant recognised by monoclonal antibody SPan-1 is high in sera of patients with exocrine pancreatic cancer. SPan-1 may be another useful, reliable serum marker in detecting this neoplasm, but this study indicates that SPan-1 does not greatly improve the diagnostic accuracy achieved with CA19.9.
 ...
PMID:[Monoclonal antibody SPan-1 in the diagnosis of exocrine pancreatic adenocarcinoma]. 1119 May 27