[Pregnancy,-associated alpha 2-glycoprotein (alpha 2-PAG): a possible marker for tumor monitoring?]

To comment on the recurrence of tumours and metastasis the long term studies of the alpha 2-PAG determination in sera of patients with carcinoma of the breast, bronchial carcinoma, gynaecological carcinoma, melanomas have proved as a possible laboratory parameter. The results published till the present time on trophoblastic tumours and gastrointestinal carcinoma are still divergent. Because of the large individual range of alpha 2-PAG concentrations and because of the widely differing alpha 2-PAG levels in men and women single determinations of this protein are without value. Still missing is a detailed clarification of pathological mechanisms to which this protein is submitted and thereby a fundamental knowledge of diseases which lead apart from pregnancy and neoplasiae to changes in the physiological alpha 2-PAG serum sample.