title: Comparison of urinary and serum CA 19-9 as markers of early stage urothelial carcinoma.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Although the glycoprotein group tumor marker CA 19-9 has been detected in both serum and urine of bladder cancer patients, information about their comparative role in screening of low grade transitional cell carcinoma (LGTCC) and high grade transitional cell carcinoma (HGTCC) is rare.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this study we measured both the urinary and serum levels of CA 19-9 in 35 LGTCC and 20 HGTCC patients by ELISA and determined the cut off value of both urinary and serum CA 19-9 levels by receiver operator characteristic curve (ROC) for both patient groups. Odds ratio (OR) for CA 19-9 was analyzed with its range at 95% confidence interval to analyze the role of this tumor marker as a screening parameter for both of these cancer types.
  
  
  RESULTS
  For urinary CA 19-9 the OR was 20.16 with an interval of 4.91-82.71 whereas for the serum CA 19-9 it was 7.5 with an interval of 2.28-24.62.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  From these data we suggest that urinary CA 19-9 is a better screening parameter with optimum sensitivity and specificity than its serum counterpart for diagnosis of low grade and early stages of transitional cell carcinoma of urinary bladder. Furthermore, it can be suggested that urinary CA 19-9 can be used as better prognostic marker for LGTCC than its serum counterpart.
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Biochemistry, Calcutta National Medical College, Kolkata-14, India.
authors.forename: Suparna
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Roy
authors.forename: Anindya
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dasgupta
authors.forename: Kaushik
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kar
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000097:blood* / Q000652:urine*; D018395:CA-19-9 Antigen / Q000097:blood* / Q000652:urine*; D002295:Carcinoma, Transitional Cell / Q000175:diagnosis*; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D042241:Early Diagnosis; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D060787:Neoplasm Grading; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D012372:ROC Curve; D012016:Reference Values; D001749:Urinary Bladder Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D018395:CA-19-9 Antigen