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What Is a High Cancer Marker?

Doctors sometimes use cancer markers, or tumor markers, to help diagnose cancer, to follow a cancer patient's treatment progress, or to monitor a patient for cancer recurrence. If a cancer marker reading is in a higher than normal range, this can indicate to a doctor that he needs to administer more testing or treatment.

  1. Definition of Cancer Marker

    • Cancerous tumors can produce chemicals in the blood or urine that doctors can detect. In some cases, the body produces substances in response to the tumors that doctors check as cancer markers.

    How Doctors Evaluate High Cancer Markers

    • Doctors may suspect cancer in a patient with abnormally high cancer markers. If the cancer marker level decreases in a patient undergoing treatment, this may indicate to doctors that the cancer is shrinking.

    Cancer Markers Aren't Definitive Tests

    • Patients with a high cancer marker reading aren't always diagnosed with cancer. Other disease processes can elevate cancer markers. Although different cancers can produce different cancer markers, no one cancer marker is specific for a certain type of cancer.

    How Doctors Measure Cancer Markers

    • Doctors may take samples of a patient's blood or urine to check for cancer markers. A laboratory can analyze the blood or urine for the presence of cancer markers. If the levels of the markers are above the range for a healthy individual, the doctor considers this an abnormally high cancer marker.

    The Future of Cancer Markers

    • Researchers at the National Cancer Institute are looking for ways to use cancer markers to find prostate and ovarian cancers in the earliest stages, when treatment is most effective. Studies are also evaluating specific cancer marker proteins for lung cancer to see if they can predict how the patients will respond to therapy.

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