Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Aug 15, 2023; 15(8): 1475-1485
Published online Aug 15, 2023. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v15.i8.1475
Carcinoembryonic antigen, carbohydrate antigen 199 and carbohydrate antigen 724 in gastric cancer and their relationship with clinical prognosis
Ran Wang, Chun-Lei Zuo, Rui Zhang, Li-Mei Zhu
Ran Wang, Chun-Lei Zuo, Rui Zhang, Li-Mei Zhu, Department of Medical Laboratory, The First People’s Hospital of Lianyungang, Lianyungang 222002, Jiangsu Province, China
Author contributions: Zhu LM designed the study; Wang R and Zhu LM wrote the manuscript; Wang R and Zuo CL performed the experiments; Wang R and Zhang R analysed the data; and all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by Ethics Committee of The First People’s Hospital of Lianyungang.
Informed consent statement: All patient data obtained, recorded, and managed only used for this study, and all patient information are strictly confidential, without any harm to the patient, so the informed consent was waived by the Ethics Committee of The First People’s Hospital of Lianyungang.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Li-Mei Zhu, MM, Chief Doctor, Department of Medical Laboratory, The First People’s Hospital of Lianyungang, No. 182 Tongguan North Road, Lianyungang 222002, Jiangsu Province, China. zlm5902@163.com
Received: June 20, 2023
Peer-review started: June 20, 2023
First decision: July 7, 2023
Revised: July 17, 2023
Accepted: July 27, 2023
Article in press: July 27, 2023
Published online: August 15, 2023
Processing time: 51 Days and 6.7 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Gastric cancer (GC) is a common malignant tumor of the digestive system with a high degree of malignancy. It usually develops insidiously without any specific symptoms in the early stages. As one of the diseases caused by abnormal gene changes, GC has abnormal expression of various oncogenes and products during its development. Tumor markers such as carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), carbohydrate antigen 199 (CA199) and carbohydrate antigen 724 (CA724) are not expressed or lowly expressed in normal people, but significantly increased after carcinogenesis. Monitoring the changes in the levels of tumor markers such as CEA, CA199 and CA724 is conducive to early diagnosis and evaluation of the occurrence of some solid tumors.

AIM

To investigate the expression of CEA, CA199 and CA724 in GC and their correlation with clinical features, hoping to provide more effective markers for the early preventive diagnosis of GC.

METHODS

Of 87 patients with GC admitted to our hospital from September 2020 to December 2021 were included in the GC group, and another 80 healthy people who came to our hospital for physical examination with normal results during the same period were selected as the control group. The serum CEA, CA199, and CA724 levels were compared between the two groups, and the serum CEA, CA199, and CA724 levels were compared in patients with GC at different TNM stages, and the differences in the positive rates of CEA, CA199, and CA724 alone and in combination in detecting TNM stages of GC and GC were compared. In addition, the relationship between the levels of tumor markers CEA, CA199 and CA724 and the clinicopathological characteristics of GC patients was also analyzed. The relationship between the serum levels of CEA, CA199 and CA724 and the survival period of GC patients was analyzed by Pearson.

RESULTS

The serum levels of CEA, CA199 and CA724 in GC group were significantly higher than those in control group (P < 0.05). With the increase of TNM stage, the serum CEA, CA199 and CA724 expression levels in GC patients increased significantly, and the differences between groups were statistically significant (P < 0.05). The positive rate of the CA724 single test was higher than that of CEA and CA199 single test (P < 0.05). The positive rate of the three combined tests was 95.40% (83/87), which was higher than that of CEA, CA199 and CA724 single tests. The difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). The combined detection positive rates of CEA, CA199, and CA724 in stages I, II, III, and IV of GC were 89.66%, 93.10%, 98.85%, and 100.00% respectively, all of which were higher than the individual detection rates of CEA, CA199, and CA724. The differences were statistically significant (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference in serum CEA, CA199 and CA724 levels between GC patients with different genders, smoking history and alcohol history (P > 0.05). However, the serum CEA, CA199 and CA724 levels were significantly higher in GC patients aged ≥ 45 years, TNM stage III-IV, with lymph node metastasis and tumor diameter ≥ 5 cm than in GC patients aged < 45 years, TNM stage I-II, without lymph node metastasis and tumor diameter < 5 cm (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

The expression levels of serum tumor markers CEA, CA199 and CA724 in patients with GC are high and rise with the increase of TNM stage. The levels of CEA, CA199 and CA724 are related to age, TNM stage, lymph node metastasis and tumor diameter. The combined detection of CEA, CA199 and CA724 is helpful to improve the diagnostic accuracy of GC with high clinical guidance value.

Keywords: Carcinoembryonic antigen; Carbohydrate antigen 199; Carbohydrate antigen 724; Gastric cancer; TNM stage; Clinicopathologic

Core Tip: In this retrospective analysis, the expression levels of tumor markers carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), carbohydrate antigen 199 (CA199) and carbohydrate antigen 724 (CA724) in gastric cancer (GC) patients and normal people were detected. In addition, the serum CEA, CA199 and CA724 levels in GC patients with different TNM stages, and the differences in the positive rates of TNM stages of GC and GC detected by CEA, CA199 and CA724 alone and in combination were compared. The relationship between tumor markers CEA, CA199 and CA724 levels and clinicopathological characteristics of GC patients was analyzed.