Talk:Tumor marker

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[edit] Cancer- vs tissue-specific

This theme doesn't work very well, or at least is not well explained. Consider AFP, which seems to be rather intermediate between the two classes. In babies AFP is normally elevated but in adults elevated AFP is a fairly good sign of something wrong. Either cancer or liver disease. I propose to rewrite this article to roughly "grade" each tumor marker by how sensitive and specific it is. Some are very nonspecific, so can be used for screening but not diagnosis. Some may be specific enough to be used for diagnosis. --Una Smith 12:32, 20 August 2007 (UTC)