Stieber P, Nagel D, Blankenburg I, Heinemann V, Untch M, Bauerfeind I, Di Gioia D. Diagnostic efficacy of CA 15-3 and CEA in the early detection of metastatic breast cancer-A retrospective analysis of kinetics on 743 breast cancer patients.
Clin Chim Acta 2015;
448:228-31. [PMID:
26160053 DOI:
10.1016/j.cca.2015.06.022]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 46] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/06/2015] [Revised: 05/10/2015] [Accepted: 06/29/2015] [Indexed: 02/08/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE
We investigated the diagnostic capacity of CEA and CA 15-3 kinetics for the early detection of metastatic disease in comparison to fixed cut off values.
METHODS
In a retrospective analysis, a total of 743 patients with early breast cancer and available baseline values of CEA and CA 15-3 were included. A reproducible increase of 100% of single or combined markers was considered as a strong indicator of metastatic disease.
RESULTS
187 patients developed metastatic disease and 556 remained disease-free. On the basis of tumor marker kinetics, we reached a specificity of >98% for both biomarkers and a sensitivity of 40.6% for CEA alone, 55.6% for CA 15-3 alone and 66.3% for the combination of both markers. Using fixed cut-off values (CEA: 4ng/mL, CA 15-3: 30U/mL) we ended up with a specificity of 86.3% and a sensitivity of 70.6% for the combination of CEA and CA 15-3. Using higher cut-off values (CEA: 6ng/mL, CA 15-3: 60U/mL) we reached a specificity of 96.9% and a sensitivity of 49.7% for the combination.
CONCLUSION
We conclude that the interpretation of these markers in follow-up using individual baseline values and kinetics leads to a significant superior profile of specificity and sensitivity.
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