[CEA and TPA in cancer of the breast. Findings and criteria of use].

Abstract

In breast cancer, under rigorous and normalized conditions, the blood levels of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and tissue polypeptide antigen (TPA) allow us: to differentiate with enough precision, in treated patients, the presence of tumour (EP) from illness-free situation (NED); to alert about the appearance of metastases and/or local relapse in patients put under systematic postoperative evolutional control; to evaluate the systemic palliative treatment response in patients with metastatic breast cancer and to formulate, in this case, prognostic predictions. Blood levels of CEA and TPA are, otherwise, unsuitable: to detect with accuracy the primary tumour presence; to warn about the risk of subclinical tumour existence (in treated patients in NED situation); to predict, in this last case, the chemotherapeutic treatment response, and to prevent about local relapses development. The independent but combined use of both antigens, appreciably raises the diagnostic success percentage with regard to that obtained when only one tumour marker was used.