Clinical use of gynaecologic tumour markers

Tumour markers have proved to be important in certain types of gynaecological cancer. The treatment of chorionic cancer is largely based on changes in the serum levels of human choriogonadotropin (hCG). There are no other markers of equal utility, but some new markers for ovarian cancer show promise of becoming clinically important in the follow-up of patients. Assay of CA 125 has become a routine method in the follow-up of nonmucinous ovarian cancer, and tumour-associated trypsin inhibitor (TATI) shows promise of being useful for mucinous ovarian cancer. In the rare ovarian embryonal tumours hCG and alphafetoprotein (AFP) are often useful. For other types of gynaecological cancer, there are no equally useful markers, but CA 125 is relatively useful in endometrial cancer and SCC (squamous cell carcinoma-associated antigen) in cervical cancer. Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is occasionally useful in ovarian and cervical cancer.