Breast cancer is one of the epithelial cancer malignancies and one of the most common cancers in the world. The recurrence of the disease can be due to blood circulation circulating tumor cells (CTCs), which can be found in the early stages of advanced breast cancer in patients with various types of breast cancer iii.
Despite advances in the biology of cancer, there remains a growing need for improved diagnostic accuracy iiiiv. In most tumors, there is a lack of tissue or serum molecular markers with sufficient sensitivity and/or specificity for detection, and disease evolution. For breast cancer, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and CA 15-3 (CA 27-29) are common markers, although these lack sensitivity and specificity, are rarely elevated prior to gross disease, and are not seen in many patients with metastases vvi.
Many other biomarkers have been suggested for use in detecting breast cancer in tissues, peripheral blood and/or bone marrow including human mammaglobin, cytokeratins (CK19 & CK20), survivin, polymorphic epithelial mucin (MUC-1), epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), maspin, estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR), urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA), plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) and B726P and small breast epithelial mucin (SBEM) i- Cristofanilli M, Hayes D, Budd G, Ellis M, Stopeck A, Reuben J et al. Circulating Tumor Cells: A Novel Prognostic Factor for Newly Diagnosed Metastatic Breast Cancer. Journal of Clinical Oncology. 2005;23(7):1420-1430.ii- de Bono J, Scher H, Montgomery R, Parker C, Miller M, Tissing H et al. Circulating Tumor Cells Predict Survival Benefit from Treatment in Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer. Clinical Cancer Research. 2008;14(19):6302-6309.
iii- Smith JA, Andreopoulou E. An overview of the status of imaging screening technology for breast cancer. Ann Oncol. 2004;15(Suppl 1):I18–26. iv- Szoke J, Udvarhelyi N. Modern pathologic diagnostics in breast cancer.
Orv Hetil. 2012;153:22–30.v- Duffy MJ. Serum tumor markers in breast cancer: are they of clinical value? Clin Chem. 2006;52:345–51.
vi- Mari? P, Ozreti? P, Levanat S, Oreskovi? S, Antunac K, Beketiæ-Oreskoviæ L. Tumor markers in breast cancer-evaluation of their clinical usefulness. Coll Antropol. 2011;35:241–7.
