Stellenwert von Tumormarkern bei primaren und rezidivierenden Plattenepithelkarzinomen des Kopf-Hals-Bereiches

We investigated the clinical relevance of CYFRA 21-1 in comparison to established tumour markers like SCC and CEA in squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck. For this purpose we examined the sera of 163 patients with primary and 40 patients with recurrent disease. As clinically relevant control served 43 patients with benign ENT-disorders as well as 51 smokers. In order to achieve a better comparability of the values the specificity was fixed at 95%. The resulting cut off values were for SCC 1.9 ng/mL, for CEA 3.8 ng/mL and for CYFRA 21-1 2.9 ng/mL. With 43% true positive test results SCC proved to have the highest sensitivity at time of primary diagnosis (CEA: 35%, CYFRA 21-1: 17%) and also of recurrent disease (SCC: 61%, CEA: 40%, CYFRA 21-1: 18%). The combined determination of SCC and CEA proved to possess a clear additive sensitivity (primary diagnosis 60%, relapse 79%), therefore in follow up care of ENT-squamous cell carcinomas the combination of SCC and CEA can be recommended until one of both parameters becomes highly positive. Following our results CYFRA 21-1 offers no additional information and can therefore not be recommended in squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck.