CA19-9
tumor marker
Carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9), also known as sialyl-LewisA, is a tetrasaccharide which is usually attached to O-glycans on the surface of cells. It is known to play a role in cell-to-cell recognition processes. It is also a tumor marker used primarily in the management of pancreatic cancer.
Structure
CA19-9 is the sialylated form of Lewis antigenA. It is a tetrasaccharide with the sequence Neu5Acα2-3Galβ1-3[Fucα1-4]GlcNAcβ.
Clinical significance
Tumor marker
Guidelines from the American Society of Clinical Oncology discourage the use of CA19-9 as a screening test for cancer, particularly pancreatic cancer. The reason is that the test may be falsely normal (false negative) in many cases or abnormally elevated in people who have no cancer (false positive) in others. The main use of CA19-9 is therefore to see whether a pancreatic tumor is secreting it; if that is the case, then the levels should fall when the tumor is treated, and they may rise again if the disease recurs. Therefore it is useful as a surrogate marker for relapse.
In people with pancreatic masses, CA19-9 can be useful in distinguishing between cancer and other diseases of the gland.
Limitations
CA19-9 can be elevated in many types of gastrointestinal cancer, such as colorectal cancer, esophageal cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma.
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This entry incorporates text from “CA19-9” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.