Clinical utility of complementary measurements standard tumor markers and cytokines in patients with cervical cancer

We aimed to relate the levels of serum tumour markers (CEA, CA 125, CYFRA 21.1) and cytokines (IL-6, VEGF) in cervical cancer patients to the clinicopathologic features of the disease and to estimate the value of these measurements as complementary to the standard tumour marker (SCC) assessment. The study comprised 200 untreated patients with confirmed cervical cancer. All the examined serum markers and cytokines were found to correlate with the clinical stage. CA 125 concentrations were found significantly higher in adenocarcinoma of the uterine cervix, as compared to squamous cell carcinoma. Circulating CA 125 in cervical adenocarcinoma proved to have a better diagnostic sensitivity than CEA. The best diagnostic sensitivity was shown for simultaneous measurements of SCC and IL-6. The use of other tumour markers and cytokines assessed complementary to SCC in the sera of patients with cervical cancer of different histopathological type was also studied. In patients with histologically confirmed squamous cell carcinoma the highest increase of diagnostic sensitivity was achieved by SCC measurements along with IL-6. In patients with adenocarcinoma, cytokine and CA 125 measurements complementary to SCC produced the best diagnostic sensitivity.
Conclusions: In patients with cervical carcinoma, serum IL-6 measurements complementary to SCC, the standard tumour marker assessed in cervical carcinoma patients, improve diagnostic sensitivity. This is especially important and useful for patients in the early clinical stages. In patients with cervical adenocarcinoma, CA 125 presents a better diagnostic value than CEA.