Gallbladder cancer laboratory tests

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief: Vamsikrishna Gunnam M.B.B.S [2]

Overview

There are some diagnostic laboratory findings associated with gallbladder cancer, such as alkaline phosphatase, serum bilirubin, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), CA 19-9.

Laboratory tests

There are no diagnostic laboratory findings associated with gallbladder carcinoma.^[1]^[2]

Laboratory findings consistent with the diagnosis of gallbladder carcinoma include:

An elevated alkaline phosphatase or serum bilirubin can be associated with bile duct obstruction.
Serum tumor markers including carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) or carbohydrate antigen 19-9 are frequently elevated, but they have lack of specificity and sensitivity.
CA 242 is a tumor marker for gallbladder cancer and performs better than CEA and CA 19-9.^[3]^[4]
However, if a tumor marker is observed to be elevated preoperatively, serial assay after resection may useful resource within the analysis of chronic or recurrent disease.

References

↑ Strom BL, Maislin G, West SL, Atkinson B, Herlyn M, Saul S, Rodriguez-Martinez HA, Rios-Dalenz J, Iliopoulos D, Soloway RD (1990). “Serum CEA and CA 19-9: potential future diagnostic or screening tests for gallbladder cancer?”. Int. J. Cancer. 45 (5): 821–4. PMID 2335386.
↑ Rana S, Dutta U, Kochhar R, Rana SV, Gupta R, Pal R, Jain K, Srinivasan R, Nagi B, Nain CK, Singh K (2012). “Evaluation of CA 242 as a tumor marker in gallbladder cancer”. J Gastrointest Cancer. 43 (2): 267–71. doi:10.1007/s12029-011-9288-7. PMID 21573879.
↑ Wang YF, Feng FL, Zhao XH, Ye ZX, Zeng HP, Li Z, Jiang XQ, Peng ZH (April 2014). “Combined detection tumor markers for diagnosis and prognosis of gallbladder cancer”. World J. Gastroenterol. 20 (14): 4085–92. doi:10.3748/wjg.v20.i14.4085. PMC 3983467. PMID 24744600.
↑ Kanthan R, Senger JL, Ahmed S, Kanthan SC (2015). “Gallbladder Cancer in the 21st Century”. J Oncol. 2015: 967472. doi:10.1155/2015/967472. PMID 26421012.

Overview