Abstract

Pancreatic cancer is one of the malignancies with the worst prognosis, characterized by late diagnosis and high mortality. CA 19-9 is the most commonly used tumor marker for this disease, although its interpretation is limited and elevations are also observed in other benign conditions. Elevated serum CA 19-9 levels usually reflect the extent of the disease, and when combined with other tumor markers improve the diagnostic sensitivity. We here report the case of a patient with pancreatic cancer in whom CA 19-9 determination reached an extraordinary level, to our knowledge, one of the highest levels of this tumor marker reported in the medical literature.

Keywords

breast cancer, tumor markers, CA 19-9, pancreatic cancer, abdominal pain