Combination of tissue polypeptide antigen (TPA) and carcino embryonic antigen (CEA) in different types of cancer.

: Tissue polypeptide antigen (TPA) and carcino embryonic antigen (CEA) were measured in 55 patients with cancer in different locations (21 lung cancer, 133 breast cancer, 9 stomach cancer, 5 colorectal cancer, 7 cancer of unknown origin). TPA gives elevated values in all types of cancer. The statistical analysis shows that TPA is about equally sensitive for all cancer types, while CEA has a particularly high sensitivity for colorectal carcinoma. The TPA values in the group of cancer patients is significantly different from those in a group of healthy controls. TPA gives higher sensitivity than CEA in all tumour locations. By the use of combined determination of TPA and CEA the sensitivity can be further increased, to 64% for the whole patient population and 89% for the gastric tumour patients, even when the cut-off values are chosen so high that no false positives are obtained in either reference group (150 Ul-1 for TPA, 10 ng ml-1 for CEA). A limited correlation exists between the markers in tumour patients.