Biomarkers For Cancer

Oct 11, 2014 Ruchira Dhoke Did You Know?, Lifestyle & Health 0

Cancer, a word in itself is enough to create havoc in one’s life. There are people who suffer from the disease but are asymptomatic. In such cases diagnosis becomes difficult. Some people are diagnosed but at such a chronic stage that even advance treatments like radiation, chemotherapy and surgical intervention doesn’t give them a second chance at life.

The advent of new technology along with an ever developing and rapidly changing concepts in the discipline of immunobiology have played a significant role in the applied studies of oncology during past 30 years. After the successful demonstration of tumor-specific transplantation antigens in chemically and virally induced tumors in syngeneic rodents and murine species, numerous efforts were made toward the search for a comparable marker in human tumors that would serve as a panacea in human cancer diagnostics.

WHAT IS A TUMOR MARKER?

Malignant transformation results in a malignant cell which in turn undergoes cell division to generate a new malignant cell. During this process, the malignantly transformed cells acquire some new properties which make them different from nonmalignant cells of the same origin. The acquired properties of the transformed cell can be a change either in cellular morphology, physiology, or the changes in cell growth (behavior).

These differences between the normal and tumor cells are designated as TUMOR MARKERSwhich are now used in the detection and treatment of cancer. Tumor markers can be either qualitative or quantitative in their nature. That means that both the structures that are produced by tumor cells as well as the structures that are produced in excessive amounts by host tissues under the influence of tumor cells can function as tumormarkers.

WHICH IS AN IDEAL TUMOR MARKER?

An ideal tumor marker should fulfill certain criteria when used as a test for detectionof cancer:

Positive results should be seen in the early stages of the disease
Positive results should be seen only in the patients with a specific type of malignancy
All patients with the same type of malignancy should test positive
The measured values should correlate withthe stage of the disease
The measured values should correlate to the response to treatment

Clinically important utilizationof markers includes:

Early detection of the tumor
Differentiating benign from malignant conditions
Evaluating the extent of the disease
Monitoring the response of the tumor to therapy
Predicting or detecting the recurrence of the tumor

TYPES OF TUMOR MARKERS

Keeping in mind the crucial role that tumor markers can play in detecting an early phase carcinoma or neoplasms, disease relapse and assessment of response to therapy in selected groups of patients, their levels should be determined only when meaningful treatment is possible.

Cancer, neoplasms-diagnosis, tumor markers

RBI Goes Easy on ATM Users, Offers More Flexibility ANTIBIOTICS “Boon for infection treatment”

Ruchira Dhoke

A qualified medical microbiologist with an avidity to read enchant a deep passion for creating a good impacting masterpiece with my words .I am very fond of good old English literature and like listening to music and paint in my free time.