The number of oncological diseases is growing, unfortunately, from year to year, despite the fact that medicine manages to achieve considerable success in this area. As you know, the curability of cancer will directly depend on when it was discovered: the sooner the better. An effective method is the analysis of tumor markers. What is it and why is it necessary, we will describe in this article.
Basic concept
When tumors appear in the human body, the composition of the blood changes. Oncomarkers appear in it. What it is? This is a special type of protein, the appearance of which accompanies the development of oncology, that is, the body releases them, responding to the disease. Recently, tumor markers are increasingly used to diagnose cancer during a period when its primary symptoms do not appear, although previously they were actively used to monitor the disease. They help detect the presence of a tumor in the body a few months earlier than ultrasound, x-rays and MRI.
So, tumor markers (what it is, we examined above) are found in the blood of a person who is supposedly having a cancerous tumor.
Types of tumor markers
For the effectiveness of diagnosis, doctors use several types. This is due to the fact that none of them can give a 100% guarantee that a person has cancer. There is a chance of developing a benign tumor. Thus, the accuracy of tumor markers is 70-80%. Which is a fairly high indicator, in particular in the early stages of the disease, when other types of diagnostics are useless.
Most often, tumor markers are prescribed:
- the prostate;
- ovaries;
- pancreas;
- the mammary gland.
Also, it is impossible to do without them in the following situations:
- To evaluate the effectiveness of surgical treatment. Accordingly, a decrease in their number indicates the success of the intervention, and an increase - on the contrary.
- When predicting cancer.
- During the postoperative period, when it is necessary to establish the presence of metastases.
Increased tumor marker. Is it always cancer?
Given the error that is possible with any study, you need to understand that not always a high amount of this type of protein in the body indicates cancer. For example, breast tumor markers are much more accurate than CA-125, in which an increase in their number may indicate the presence of any gynecological diseases other than oncology.
How to take a blood test?
You can donate blood to tumor markers in the direction of a doctor if you suspect a tumor. Decipher the testimony can also only he. As for the blood donation process itself, it is performed in the morning on an empty stomach, the fence is made from a vein. With the controversial results of the analysis, MRI, ultrasound, gastroscopy, biochemical analysis and so on will help to clarify the diagnosis.
I would like to note that the actively used tumor markers (which is what we examined in the article) in the practice of oncologists have a positive impact on the dynamics of treatment of cancer patients and monitoring of their disease.