Carbohydrate antigen 242 (CA242)

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Carbohydrate antigen 242 (CA242) is a sialylated sugar chain antigen, exists in normal pancreatic and colorectal mucosal cells, which can be detected on the cell surface or in serum. CA242 is a tumor marker obtained from human colorectal adenocarcinoma cell line COLO205 immunized mice. The antigenic epitope of CA242 has not been fully clarified, it is generally considered to be similar to the antigenic epitope of carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) and carbohydrate antigen 50 (CA50), but not totally identical. CA19-9 and CA50 contain the same sialylated Lewis a type blood group epitope, but CA242 cannot recognize the sialylated Lewis antigen, indicating that there is a difference in their structures. The content of CA242 in healthy people and benign diseases serum is relatively low, but its expression level increases in malignant tumors, especially in pancreatic cancers and rectal cancers, thus proving it has high specificity for malignant tumors, and has high sensitivity for monitoring malignant tumors, evaluating disease process, treatment effects and prognosis. CA242 is widely detected in the clinical diagnosis of malignant tumors such as: diagnosis of pancreatic cancer combined with CA242 and CA19-9; diagnosis of colorectal cancer combined with CEA, CRP, SAA, and CA50; diagnosis of gastric cancer combined with CA274, CEA, CA19-9, etc.

Reference

[1] Jiang Jing-Ting, Wu Chang-Ping. Deng Hai-Feng. et al Serum level of TSGF CA242 and CA19-9 in pancreatic cancer [J]. World Journal of Gastroenterology, 2004, 10(11): 1675-1677.