Elevation of CA15-3 caused by a benign tumour

Elevation of cancer antigen 15-3 owing to oncocytic renal neoplasm in a patient without evidence of breast cancer recurrence on follow-up: a case report

BACKGROUND

Cancer antigen 15-3 is a protein that clinicians commonly measure to monitor outcomes and response to treatment in patients with breast cancer. However, cancer antigen 15-3 can also be elevated in other, benign and malignant conditions.

CASE PRESENTATION

A 73-year-old White woman with history of breast cancer presented to her primary care physician with right hip pain, and laboratory testing revealed elevated cancer antigen 15-3. Further workup with radiographic imaging revealed a large mass in her right kidney. The renal mass was subsequently removed, and the cancer antigen 15-3 level returned to normal.

CONCLUSIONS

Elevation of cancer antigen 15-3 owing to causes other than breast cancer recurrence can be a potential diagnostic pitfall during a patient's follow-up. It is important for clinicians to be aware of the limitations of cancer markers and to utilize a combination of diagnostic tests for patient evaluation.

SELDI-TOF proteomic analysis and cancer detection

BACKGROUND

In recent years proteomic approaches have been widely used to diagnose disease and the new technology of surface enhanced laser-desorption and ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (SELDI-TOF MS) is very promising.

METHODS

A review of English language literature was undertaken using Internet databases such as PubMed and Medline for studies using proteomic technologies for the early detection of cancer.

RESULTS

SELDI-TOF is an array based mass spectrometric method in which proteins of interest are selectively absorbed onto a chemically modified surface and the mass and amount of each protein is measured by irradiating the surface with a laser and measuring the time-of-flight. The technology has revealed a large number of previously uncharacterized biomarkers for a wide variety of cancers. Its versatility has also been demonstrated by its application as a tool for mining a wide variety of biological tissues and fluids.

CONCLUSIONS

The majority of these studies have discriminated between diseased and healthy controls with a high degree of sensitivity and specificity. The reproducibility, standardization and feasibility of this technology need to be addressed before these proteomic approaches to the discovery of novel, highly sensitive diagnostic tools can become routine clinical care.

Quadruplex-interactive agents as telomerase inhibitors: synthesis of porphyrins and structure-activity relationship for the inhibition of telomerase

The cationic porphyrin 5,10,15,20-tetra-(N-methyl-4-pyridyl)porphyrin (TMPyP4) binds to quadruplex DNA and is thereby an inhibitor of human telomerase (Wheelhouse et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1998, 120, 3261-3262). Herein the synthesis and telomerase-inhibiting activity of a wide range of analogues of TMPyP4 are reported, from which rules for a structure-activity relationship (SAR) have been discerned: (1) stacking interactions are critical for telomerase inhibition, (2) positively charged substituents are important but may be interchanged and combined with hydrogen-bonding groups, and (3) substitution is tolerated only on the meso positions of the porphyrin ring, and the bulk of the substituents should be matched to the width of the grooves in which they putatively lie. This SAR is consistent with a model presented for the complexation of TMPyP4 with human telomeric quadruplex DNA.