serum ca19-9 in patients with solid pancreatic mass

aim : this study evaluated the results and efficacy of serum ca 19-9 in determining the nature of a pancreatic solid mass in patients referred for investigation of possible malignancy. background : a wide variety of tumor markers have been proposed for pancreatic cancer but currently the only one with any practical usefulness for diagnosis, prognosis, and monitoring of treatment is “ca 19-9 ”. patients and methods : this present study is a single center 2 year descriptive, prospective and case series studying   patients with a pancreatic solid mass. results : serum ca 19-9 was checked in 159 patients .the majority of patients were male (68%) and 81% had mass in the head of pancreas. pathologic assessment revealed 131 adenocarcinomas (82%), 10 other malignancies (6%), 7 benign lesion (4%) and was non-diagnostic in 11 cases (7%).  mean level of this tumor marker in patients with adenocarcinoma, non-adenocarcinoma malignancy, benign and non-diagnostic pathology was 1094, 1004, 120, 259 u/ml respectively. with regarding 58 u/ml as a cutoff point; sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and accuracy of this tumor marker for diagnosing the adenocarcinoma were 85%, 67%, 88%, 60% and 81% respectively.