Comparative study on the levels of alpha-fetoprotein [AFP] in different pathological cases

ABSTRACT

This research represented a trial to demonstrate the changes which may take place in AFP levels as a tumor marker among pregnant Egyptian women suffering from bilharzial and cancerous infestations. It was found that combination of schistosomal infection with pregnancy leads to obvious high significant increase in AFP in late pregnancy [6 - 8 months] compared with unpregnant patients. Although the combination between bilharzial infestation and early pregnancy leads to increase in AFP level, the differences were nonsignificant compared with unpregnant ones. There is an extremely significant increase in AFP levels among urinary and intestinal schistosomal pregnant patients compared with healthy pregnant women which was higher in intestinal infection and more pronounced in early pregnancy than late ones. Malignancy in combination with pregnancy caused remarkable significant increase compared with unpregnant patients, and the increase was slightly higher in bladder than colonic cancerous cases and their AFP levels were gradually increased with progress of both pregnancy and malignancy