DEAR DR. ROACH: Would you please discuss the meaning and significance of blood tests to show the level of cancer markers to identify cancer and track the efficacy of treatments? I am 69 years old and have metastatic breast cancer, diagnosed in July 2022. The primary cancer was treated in 2018-2019 with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. All during the treatment, my oncologist ordered bloodwork to monitor the level of CA-15-3 and CA 27.29. At the end of treatment, when a PET-CT scan showed no traces of cancer, the levels of the markers were in the low…
Cancer markers not always the best tool to monitor remission
Tumor markers are blood tests that tend to correlate with specific cancer activity, although those numbers can be misleading, Dr. Keith Roach warns, when it comes to monitoring remission.
