The Importance of Epigenetic Markers for Early Detection of Breast Can

Abstract

Different serum markers were tested for breast cancer, the routinely-used ones in the clinical practice, the carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and the carcinoma antigen (CA15-3). The present study showed that the levels of both CEA and CA15-3 in serum were significantly higher in the breast cancer patients compared to the benign ones; while the control individuals reported the lowest level which indicate that CA15-3 and CEA can be used as useful tumour markers for the early detection of breast cancer. This study also demonstrated the methylation status of the promoters of the two genes APC and RASSF1A among breast diseases’ patients using “relative Q-MSP method” which was designed to specifically amplify bisulphite-converted methylated DNA target sequences in the presence of an excess of unmethylated counterpart sequences. The carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) level was detected and showed significant difference among the three enrolled groups – the malignant, the benign tuomour and the control groups – (Frequency “F” =37.097, p < 0.0001).