Prognostic value of carbohydrate antigen125 and carcino embryonic antigen expression in patients with colorectal carcinoma and its guiding significance for chemotherapy

Prediction models of colorectal cancer prognosis incorporating perioperative longitudinal serum tumor markers: a retrospective longitudinal cohort study

BACKGROUND

Current prognostic prediction models of colorectal cancer (CRC) include only the preoperative measurement of tumor markers, with their available repeated postoperative measurements underutilized. CRC prognostic prediction models were constructed in this study to clarify whether and to what extent the inclusion of perioperative longitudinal measurements of CEA, CA19-9, and CA125 can improve the model performance, and perform a dynamic prediction.

METHODS

The training and validating cohort included 1453 and 444 CRC patients who underwent curative resection, with preoperative measurement and two or more measurements within 12 months after surgery, respectively. Prediction models to predict CRC overall survival were constructed with demographic and clinicopathological variables, by incorporating preoperative CEA, CA19-9, and CA125, as well as their perioperative longitudinal measurements.

RESULTS

In internal validation, the model with preoperative CEA, CA19-9, and CA125 outperformed the model including CEA only, with the better area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUCs: 0.774 vs 0.716), brier scores (BSs: 0.057 vs 0.058), and net reclassification improvement (NRI = 33.5%, 95% CI: 12.3 ~ 54.8%) at 36 months after surgery. Furthermore, the prediction models, by incorporating longitudinal measurements of CEA, CA19-9, and CA125 within 12 months after surgery, had improved prediction accuracy, with higher AUC (0.849) and lower BS (0.049). Compared with preoperative models, the model incorporating longitudinal measurements of the three markers had significant NRI (40.8%, 95% CI: 19.6 to 62.1%) at 36 months after surgery. External validation showed similar results to internal validation. The proposed longitudinal prediction model can provide a personalized dynamic prediction for a new patient, with estimated survival probability updated when a new measurement is collected during 12 months after surgery.

CONCLUSIONS

Prediction models including longitudinal measurements of CEA, CA19-9, and CA125 have improved accuracy in predicting the prognosis of CRC patients. We recommend repeated measurements of CEA, CA19-9, and CA125 in the surveillance of CRC prognosis.

Clinical Significance of Early Carcinoembryonic Antigen Change in Patients With Nonmetastatic Colorectal Cancer

Background

This study aimed to evaluate the prognostic significance of preoperative, postoperative, and trajectory changes in carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC).

Methods

This retrospective study included patients who underwent surgical resection for nonmetastatic CRC. The optimal cutoff values of preoperative CEA (CEA-pre), early postoperative CEA (CEA-post), and CEA level change (CEA-delta) were determined to maximize the differences in overall survival (OS) among groups. The patients were divided into three groups according to CEA-trend: normal, low CEA-pre; normalized, high CEA-pre/low CEA-post; elevated, high CEA-pre/high CEA-post. The integrated area under the curve (iAUC) was used to compare the discriminatory power of all variables.

Results

A total of 1019 patients diagnosed with stage I–III CRC were enrolled. The optimal cutoff values of CEA level were determined as 2.3 ng/mL for CEA-pre, 2.3 ng/mL for CEA-post, and -0.93 ng/mL for CEA-delta. Although subgroup dichotomization showed that CEA-pre, CEA-post, CEA-delta, and CEA-trend were all associated with OS in univariate analysis, CEA-trend was the only independent prognostic factor in multivariate analysis. The iAUC of CEA-trend was superior to that of CEA-pre, CEA-post, and CEA-delta. Compared with the normal group, the normalized group showed worse OS (p=.0007) in stage II patients but similar OS (p=.067) in stage III patients.

Conclusion

The optimal cutoff value of CEA level in the preoperative and postoperative periods was determined to be 2.3 ng/mL, and the combination of CEA-pre and CEA-post showed better prognostic stratification. However, its prognostic significance may differ depending on the CRC stage.

Diagnostic and Prognostic Values of Serum EpCAM, TGM2, and HE4 Levels in Endometrial Cancer

Objectives: This study aims to investigate the diagnostic and prognostic values of EpCAM, TGM2, and HE4 in endometrial cancer (EC).

Methods: In this study, 42 patients diagnosed with EC (EC group), 41 patients diagnosed with myoma (benign group), and 43 healthy women (healthy group), who applied to Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University between March 2018 - September 2019 were recruited. Serum EpCAM, TGM2, and IL-33 levels were measured by ELISA, while serum HE4 and CA-125 levels were measured by ECLIA. The serum markers listed above were also measured in 12 paired pre- and post-operative EC patients. The diagnostic and prognostic values of serum markers were analyzed.

Results: The serum EpCAM, TGM2, HE4, CA-125, and IL-33 levels were significantly higher in the EC group. The sensitivity and specificity of combined detection of EpCAM and HE4 was 92.86 and 69.05%, which were significantly higher than using a single marker or other combinations. Among these markers, serum HE4 levels were significantly higher in patients with myometrial invasion, metastasis, and lymphovascular invasion (p = 0.006, p = 0.0004, p = 0.0004, respectively). And serum TGM2 levels were significantly decreased in post-operative than that of pre-operative EC patients (p < 0.001).

Conclusions: The combination of EpCAM and HE4 showed the highest specificity and sensitivity in the diagnosis of EC. HE4 was successful in the detection of high-risk individuals preoperatively. Additionally, TGM2 might be a prognostic factor for EC.