We reviewed the effectiveness of commercial serological markers for the ear
ly detection of cancer and monitoring cancer patients. Parameters, such as
specificity and variability of tumor markers were compared with a new appro
ach for cancer detection which was recently developed in our laboratory. We
demonstrate that the absence of tumor specificity and the extremely high v
ariability of tumor markers are the reason that none of them can be used fo
r early cancer diagnosis. We developed a method for the isolation of tumor-
associated antigens (TAA) and found that two soluble low-molecular mass 66
and 51 kDa proteins could be isolated from the blood of cancer patients. Th
e first protein, albumin, belongs to a group of heat-shock proteins (HSP),
while the second is connected with TAA. The progress in cancer is character
ized by a relative decrease in the concentration of HSP and a high increase
in blood levels of TAA. Our method was shown to be highly sensitive and sp
ecific for the early detection of different types of cancer, such as of the
colon, uterus, ovary, and breast, as well as melanoma.