Diagnostic validity of serum macrophage inhibitor cytokine and tissue polypeptide-specific antigen in pancreatobiliary diseases.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Macrophage inhibitory cytokine (MIC-1) and tissue polypeptide-specific antigen (TPS) are novel markers for several inflammatory and malignant disorders, and there are no sufficient data about the utility of these antigens as serum tumor markers. We aimed at measuring the serum levels of MIC-1 and TPS in patients with benign and malignant pancreatobiliary diseases and at determining their diagnostic efficacy.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: Sera collected from patients with pancreatic adenocarcinomas (56 cases), periampullary carcinomas other than pancreatic carcinomas (15 cases), benign pancreatic diseases (31 cases), benign biliary diseases (15 cases) and healthy volunteers (33 cases) were analyzed for MIC-1 and TPS and the results were compared with CA 19-9.

RESULTS: Serum MIC-1 levels increased more significantly in patients with pancreatic carcinomas than in patients with benign pancreatobiliary diseases and healthy controls (p < 0.05). MIC-1 has a similar sensitivity (81%) but a lower specificity (73 vs. 97%) than CA 19-9 in patients with pancreatic carcinomas. Serum TPS was comparable among patients with malignant and benign pancreatobiliary diseases, and healthy controls.

CONCLUSION: MIC-1 is a valuable tumor marker for the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. It has a good correlation with CA 19-9. TPS has no diagnostic importance to differentiate pancreatobiliary diseases. and IAP.