Abstract
Aim: The aim of the study was to assess the degree to which tissue polypeptide antigen (TPA) and tissue polypeptide-specific antigen (TPS), as well as carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), can assist in the detection of distant metastases. Patients and Methods: We assessed 157 patients with colorectal and breast cancer divided into two groups.
The first was a group of patients with cancer at stages 1, 2 and 3; the second was a group of patients with cancer at stage 4 with metastasis. Results: We found significantly higher levels of all biomarkers in the metastatic group compared to the group with cancer at stages 1-3 (p<0.0001).
The calculated area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was 0.9929 for TPS, 0.9337 for TPA and 0.7234 for CEA. The cut-off was calculated for each biomarker at 95% specificity, TPS cutoff=255 IU/l (sensitivity 95%), TPA cut-off=200 IU/l (sensitivity 70%) and CEA cut-off=18 mu g/l (sensitivity 37%).
Conclusion: We suggest combining CEA with TPS or TPA in the detection of distant metastases or using only cytokeratins. This approach can significantly increase the quality of detection of the metastatic process.