Abstract
BackgroundTo investigate the significance of monitoring the levels of the serum squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC-Ag) for the detection of recurrent disease in patients with cervical cancer treated by concurrent chemoradiotherapy.MethodsThe records of 112 patients with cervical cancer were reviewed. Serum SCC-Ag levels were measured at regular follow-up visits. A SCC-Ag level of 2 ng/mL was considered the upper limit of normal. Biochemical failure was defined as two consecutively increasing SCC-Ag values above normal. Recurrent disease was confirmed by histologic and radiographic studies.ResultsEighteen patients (16%) developed recurrent disease. Sixteen patients had initially elevated SCC-Ag, post-treatment normalization of SCC-Ag, and tumor recurrence. The SCC-Ag difference (ΔSCC-Ag), defined as the difference between the last value after two consecutively increases above normal and the value immediately before the elevation, had good clinical performance in predicting cancer recurrence. The cutoff value of ΔSCC-Ag was 0.95 ng/mL.ConclusionsSCC-Ag is a relatively good method for the detection of disease recurrence in patients with cervical cancer who were treated by concurrent chemoradiotherapy.
Highlights
To investigate the significance of monitoring the levels of the serum squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC-Ag) for the detection of recurrent disease in patients with cervical cancer treated by concurrent chemoradiotherapy
Few studies have focused on cervical cancer patients treated by concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT), which is considered the standard treatment for locally advanced cervical cancer
We investigated the potential use of SCC-Ag as a marker for predicting tumor recurrence in uterine cervical cancer patients treated with CCRT
Summary
To investigate the significance of monitoring the levels of the serum squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC-Ag) for the detection of recurrent disease in patients with cervical cancer treated by concurrent chemoradiotherapy. The results of several randomized trials have recommended the concomitant administration of chemotherapy and radiotherapy as a standard treatment for patients with locally advanced cervical cancer [1,2,3] This combination treatment plays a role in improving disease control, many patients suffer from tumor recurrence during the follow-up period. Several studies have reported the use of serial SCC-Ag data for post-therapeutic monitoring In these reports, 70-86% of cervical cancer patients with recurrent disease had elevated SCC-Ag levels at some time during follow-up [7,8,11,14,16]. Few studies have focused on cervical cancer patients treated by concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT), which is considered the standard treatment for locally advanced cervical cancer
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