Comparison of CA19-9 with other tumor markers in the diagnosis of cancer of the pancreas.

The carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) and radioimmunoassay have been shown to offer new hope for improving the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, and various tumor markers (including SPan-1, DUPAN-2, and CA50) have been established. While clinical studies of these markers have found satisfactory sensitivities, only a few studies have compared these tumor markers on the same blood samples. We therefore evaluated the clinical efficacy of SPan-1, CA19-9, DUPAN-2, CA50, carcino-embryonic antigen, and Elastase 1 in detecting pancreatic cancer in identical blood samples.