What is carbohydrate antigen assay

With the improvement of people's living standards, more and more people have begun to pay attention to their physical health. Many people go to the hospital for physical examinations regularly. In this way, they can find diseases in the body in time. If you want to do a cancer prevention physical examination, then carbohydrate antigen determination is indispensable. So let's take a look at what carbohydrate antigen determination is.

First, what is carbohydrate antigen determination? Carbohydrate antigen (CA24-2) is a sialylated mucin-type carbohydrate antigen, which is present in very little or even no content in normal human tissues. When a malignant tumor occurs, its content in tumor tissue and serum may increase, which is particularly evident in pancreatic cancer and colorectal cancer. As a new tumor marker, the advantage of CA242 lies mainly in its high specificity, that is, it increases significantly in malignant tumors, but generally does not increase in benign diseases. It also has independent predictive value and can be used as a tumor marker for pancreatic cancer and colon cancer. Its sensitivity is similar to that of CA19-9.

Second, gastrointestinal tumors . (1) Gastric cancer: The serum CA72-4 concentration in gastric cancer patients is increased, with a clinical sensitivity of about 40% to 60%. It is often used as the preferred tumor marker for gastric cancer and is a good indicator for gastric cancer disease staging and efficacy testing. (2) Colon cancer: The sensitivity of serum CA72-4 is 20%~41%. Serum CA72-4 may decrease within about 18 days after complete tumor resection. If CA72-4 is at a high level or increases further during long-term monitoring, it indicates residual tumor or recurrence.

Third, ovarian cancer . The clinical sensitivity of serum CA72-4 is 47%~80% and is correlated with the tumor stage. Serum CA72-4 may also be elevated to varying degrees in other malignant tumors, including esophageal cancer, breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, bile duct cancer, cervical cancer, etc. In benign diseases, a small number of diseases such as cirrhosis, pancreatitis, pneumonia, etc., elevated serum CA72-4 levels may also be seen.

What is carbohydrate antigen testing? Carbohydrate antigens are divided into carbohydrate antigen 199 and carbohydrate antigen 125. Carbohydrate antigen 199 is distributed in the pancreas, gallbladder, liver, intestine of normal fetuses and the pancreas and bile duct epithelium of normal adults. It is a gastrointestinal tumor-associated antigen present in the blood circulation. Pancreatic cancer has the highest positive rate, so CA19-9 is a good marker for pancreatic cancer. The CA 199 level of hepatobiliary cancer, gastric cancer, and colorectal cancer may also be positive, which is many times higher than the normal average.