[Are the ATS (American Thoracic Society) and the ERS (European Respiratory Society) correct in not recommending routine tumor marker assays foeening, staging, or evaluation of non-small cell lung cancer?]. / Faut-il suivre les sociétés savantes de pneumologie dans leurs recommandations concernant l'utilisation des marqueurs tumoraux sériques pour l'évaluation pronostique des cancers bronchiques primitifs non à petites cellules?

The American Thoracic Society (ATS) and the European Respiratory Society (ERS) do not recommend routine tumor marker assay for screening, staging or evaluation of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In contrast to this position, the statement of the French society of pneumology (Société de Pneumologie de Langue Française, SPLF) suggests such assays may be useful for prognostic evaluation of NSCLC (and certainly so before treatment) and that the usefulness of serum CEA (carcino-embryonic antigen) measurements before and after treatment is not clearly excluded. Our own review of the literature indicates that other routine tests less expensive than tumor markers such as LDH, prothrombin time, calcium, blood cell counts and even serum proteins might, alone or in combination, have a prognostic significance similar to, or even higher than, tumor markers. Since routine clinical laboratories have to set priorities for useful analyses, a clear reading of the biomedical literature suggests that it is not currently necessary to routinely measure serum tumor markers (including Cyfra 21-1) for the prognostic evaluation of NSCLC patients.