Clinical application of serum tumor associated material (TAM) from non-small cell lung cancer patients.

OBJECTIVE To explore the associations of serum tumor associated material (TAM) with other common tumor markers like carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA125), carbohydrate antigen19-9 (CA19-9) and its clinical application in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. METHODS A total of 87 patients were enrolled into this study, all with histologically or cytologically confirmed NSCLC. With the method of chemical colorimetry, the level of TAM was determined and compared, while chemiluminescence was used to measure the levels of common tumor markers. RESULTS The level of TAM decreased after chemotherapy compared with before chemotherapy when CT or MRI scans showed disease control. Furthermore, it increased when disease progressed and there was no statistically significant difference in monitoring of TAM and common tumor markers (P>0.05). CONCLUSIONS Detecting TAM in NSCLC patients has a higher sensitivity and specificity, so it can be used as an indicator for clinical monitoring of lung cancer chemotherapy.