For healthy people, tumor markers are not suitable for wide-scale screening of tumors, but for people at high risk of cancer, screening for tumor markers is necessary and can be performed on the advice of a doctor.
Tumor markers refer to the substances that characteristically exist in malignant tumor cells or are abnormally produced by malignant tumor cells, and they are substances that can reflect the occurrence and development of tumors and monitor the response of tumors to treatment.
However, the elevation of tumor markers does not necessarily represent the occurrence of malignant tumors in the body, and non-tumor diseases may also cause the elevation of tumor markers, such as chronic hepatitis, endometriosis, prostate hyperplasia and so on.
Therefore, general physical examination of healthy people is not suitable for screening tumors by tumor markers, and many healthy people may get false-positive results, and blindly conducting tumor marker tests may bring mental burden and waste of resources.
However, in the physical examination of people at high risk of cancer, screening for tumor markers can help early detection and diagnosis of malignant tumors. This group includes long-term heavy smoking, alcohol abuse, overwork, family history of malignant tumors, long-term exposure to toxic and hazardous substances, chronic hepatitis B, AIDS, HPV infection, Helicobacter pylori infection, etc. It is important to conduct targeted tumor marker screening.