Clinical significance of preoperative serum tumor markers in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

摘要

Background: Serum tumor markers (TMs) were seldom reported in esophageal carcinoma (ESCC), and the results were still unsatisfactory. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively analyzed carcinoembryonic antigen, CA125, CA199, CA724 and CA242 in ESCC patients. The preliminary relations between serum TMs and clinicopathological factors or prognosis were analyzed by Fisher's exact test and Kaplan-Meier method firstly. Then, the cut-off values of these serum TMs were delimited according to lymph node metastasis, hematogenic metastasis and 2-year survival or 5-year survival of ESCC by receiver operating characteristic curve. Based on these cut-off values, the relations between the serum TMs and clinicopathological factors or prognosis were analyzed again. Univariate and multivariate analyses of Cox regression proportional hazard model were performed to evaluate the prognostic parameters for survival. Results: We chose 13.65 U/mL, 9.945 U/mL and 6.25 U/mL as new cut-off values of CA125, CA199 and CA724, respectively, and chose 25.35 U/mL as the cut-off value of CA125 for ESCC hematogenous metastasis. with these optimal cut-off values, CA199, CA125 and CA724 were associated with ESCC hematogenous metastasis, and CA199 and CA125 were associated with ESCC lymph node metastasis, but not associated with other clinicopathological factors. The prognosis was better in patients with CA125 ≤ 13.65 U/mL than those with CA125 13.65U/mL. Vascular tumor thrombus, grading, T grade, lymph node metastasis and CA125 were independent prognostic factors. Conclusion: CA125 could predict lymph node metastasis, hematogenic metastasis and prognosis with the cut-off value 13.65 U/mL.