Cancer antigen 15-3 (CA 15-3), carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and tissue polypeptide antigen (TPA) were measured in 679 sera of breast cancer patients and in 94 sera of women without breast cancer. The tumour markers were determined using immunoluminometric assays (ILMA). The assays are characterised by an inter-assay-imprecision and intra-assay-imprecision <4 %. The breast cancer patients were staged according to the TNM classification stage 0-IV (by UICC) in patient groups with a compatible prognosis. Median and range of each stage were investigated. The cut-off values (95th and 97.5th percentile of control group) of CA 15-3, CEA and TPA were determined; specificity, sensitivity, positive and negative predictive value (PV) and efficiency were investigated for these cut-off's and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were calculated. The differences between control group and stage 0-3 were shown as non-significant for CA 15-3 and CEA but significant for TPA. Significant differences were found in stage 4 for all three tumour markers. The three tumour markers did not have differences in specificity, positive and negative PV and efficiency. TPA and CA 15-3 demonstrated comparable results in sensitivity and ROC curve analyses. These results were better than those from CEA.