Laboratory Department, Liaocheng People's Hospital and Liaocheng Clinical School of Taishan Medical University, Liaocheng, Shandong 252000, P.R. Chin1Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Liaocheng People's Hospital and Liaocheng Clinical School of Taishan Medical University, Liaocheng, Shandong 252000, P.R. China
The sensitivity of three biomarkers, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), carbohydrate antigen (CA) 19-9 and CA72-4, in combination has been identified to be greater than that of any of the biomarkers considered in isolation in cases of gastric cancer (GC). However, the fundamental cause underlying this phenomenon remains to be fully elucidated. In the present study, the differences and correlation of these three biomarkers were investigated in patients with GC in order to determine how the three bio...更多
The sensitivity of three biomarkers, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), carbohydrate antigen (CA) 19-9 and CA72-4, in combination has been identified to be greater than that of any of the biomarkers considered in isolation in cases of gastric cancer (GC). However, the fundamental cause underlying this phenomenon remains to be fully elucidated. In the present study, the differences and correlation of these three biomarkers were investigated in patients with GC in order to determine how the three biomarkers in combination work more effectively compared with any of the biomarkers considered alone. The serum levels of CEA, CA199 and CA724 of 216 patients with gastric adenocarcinoma were analyzed on admission to hospital. The differences in positive rates and the serum levels of CEA, CA199 and CA724 were analyzed using the χ2 test and the nonparametric Wilcoxon twosample test. Phi (f) correlation analysis was used to study the correlation among the expression (positive or not) levels of CEA, CA199 and CA724. The correlation among the serum levels of biomarkers was analyzed using Spearman's test. The results demonstrated that the combined positive rate of CEA, CA199 and CA724 was significantly higher compared with the individual CEA, CA199 and CA724 positive rates (44.91% vs. 22.69, 18.98 and 22.69%, respectively; all P<0.05). The positive rate of CA199 and CA724 in the extent of the primary tumor/involvement of regional lymph node/distant metastases (TNM)III/IV stage subgroup was higher compared with that in the TNMI/II subgroup (χ2=5.902, P=0.015; χ2=8.009, P=0.005), although not the positive rate of CEA (χ2=0.302, P=0.583). A significant correlation was identified between the expression level of CEA and CA724 (f correlation coefficient=0.182; P=0.008) and between that of CA199 and CA724 (f correlation coefficient=0.189; P=0.006), although not between that of CEA and CA199 (f correlation coefficient=0.048; P=0.482) in the total number of patients with GC. A significant correlation was also identified between the serum levels of CEA and CA199, of CEA and CA724 and of CA199 and CA724 (Spearman's correlation coefficient=0.231, 0.271 and 0.167; P=0.001, P<0.0001 and P=0.014, respectively). The present study indicated that there was only a weak correlation between the positive rate of CEA and CA724 and between that of CA199 and CA724, and no correlation was identified between the positive rate of CEA and CA199, even if a correlation was identified between the serum levels of the biomarkers. The present study suggested that the evidence that the sensitivity of the three biomarkers in combination is greater than that of any of the biomarkers taken in isolation is due to less co-presentation of CEA, CA19-9 and CA72-4 in patients with GC.收起
