Tissue polypeptide antigen (TPA), hyaluronan and CA 125 as serum markers in malignant mesothelioma

Mesothelioma is a rare disease with poor prognosis. Monitoring the effect of treatment is a problem and a serum marker might be of use for this purpose. We have studied three serum markers TPA, Hyaluronan and CA 125 in a limited material (11 patients) with the purpose of finding out if they might reflect treatment effect and/or indicate prognosis. The results in our material show that correspondence between initial TPA levels and survival seems to be better than corresponding data regarding Hyaluronan and CAI 25. Five patients show increasing serum levels of all three serum markers from first to last sample as the mesothelioma progressed according to consecutive CT scans. In three of these patients stable disease was followed by a decrease in the serum marker levels. Our results indicate that these three serum markers and mainly TPA might be useful as markers of disease progression and TPA for prediction of survival.