Cytokeratin 19 (CK19) as a Tumor Marker in Pleural Effusion

Volume 3 • Issue 1 • 1000e122 Trop Med Surg ISSN: 2329-9088 TPMS, an open access journal Pleural effusion is a common clinical presentation. Approximately 20% of pleural effusions are due to malignancy, and 50% of these are due to primary lung cancer [1]. A malignant pleural effusion may be the initial presentation of cancer in 10 to 50% of patients [2]. Cytological examination of malignant effusion is important because it is easy and noninvasive. However, highly suspected cases of malignant effusion with repeated negative cytological findings are sometimes encountered [3]. Several tumor markers in pleural fluid have been evaluated to distinguish malignant effusion from benign e.g. carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) [4] neuron-specific enolase [5] and cytokeratin 19 [6,7]. During the last 10 years, new immunologic and molecular analytic procedures have been developed to diagnose and characterize minimal residual cancer [8]. Malignant pleural effusions often result from malignant tumors transferring into pleural cavity. On 1998, Lockett et al. [9] had developed keratin-19, c-myc and prolactin inducible protein RT-PCR based method to identify axillary lymph node metastases in patients with breast cancer and thought it appeared to be a readily available and highly sensitive method for detecting breast cancer micrometastases.