Clinical utility of tumor markers in hepatocellular and pancreatic carcinomas

Because they show high levels in hepatocellular carcinoma, α-fetoprotein and des-γ-carboxyprothrombin are clinically useful tumor markers for differentiating hepatocellular carcinoma from other hepatic diseases. The two are useful complementary markers of hepatocellular carcinoma because they do not correlate with each other. A typical marker of pancreatic cancer is carbohydrate antigen (CA)19-9. Over a period of more than 10 years, many markers resembling CA19-9 have been identified, but none are markedly superior to CA19-9, and the sensitivity of these markers in pancreatic cancer is only 65%–80%. Tumor markers are not useful for the early diagnosis of either hepatocellular carcinoma or pancreatic cancer. They are, however, considered to be useful for monitoring after treatment.