Surgery Today

, Volume 48, Issue 4, pp 388–394 | Cite as

Serum carbohydrate antigen 125 is a significant prognostic marker in patients with unresectable advanced or recurrent gastric cancer

  • Tsutomu Namikawa
  • Yasuhiro Kawanishi
  • Kazune Fujisawa
  • Eri Munekage
  • Jun Iwabu
  • Masaya Munekage
  • Hiromichi Maeda
  • Hiroyuki Kitagawa
  • Michiya Kobayashi
  • Kazuhiro Hanazaki
Original Article
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Accepted:
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Abstract

Purpose

We evaluated the diagnostic and prognostic value of three tumor markers: carcino-embryonic antigen (CEA), carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9), and carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA125), in the pretreatment serum of patients with unresectable advanced or recurrent gastric cancer.

Methods

The subjects of this retrospective analysis were 245 patients with unresectable advanced or recurrent gastric cancer diagnosed at Kochi Medical School between 2007 and 2015. We ascertained the sensitivity of CEA, CA19-9, and CA125 to identify a certain survival time and then evaluated the relative prognosis of the patients.

Results

The overall positive rates for each tumor marker in the study group were as follows: 57.6% (141/245) for CEA, 38.4% (94/245) for CA19-9, and 34.3% (84/245) for CA125; the sensitivity of these three biomarkers in combination was 73.1% (179/245). The median survival time of the CA125-positive patients was 4.5 months, which was significantly shorter than that of a normal range group (18.3 months, P < 0.001). Multivariate survival analysis identified that high CA125 was independently associated with a worse prognosis (HR 3.941; 95% CI 2.544–6.106; P < 0.001).

Conclusions

Pretreatment serum CA125 is a useful prognostic biomarker in patients with unresectable advanced or recurrent gastric cancer. Evaluating a panel of serum tumor biomarkers is a useful diagnostic tool as elevated values might be associated with poor survival.

Keywords

Gastric cancer Tumor marker Biomarker Prognosis Chemotherapy 
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Notes

Compliance with ethical standards

Conflict of interest

None of the authors received funding or have any competing interests to disclose.

Supplementary material

595_2017_1598_MOESM1_ESM.tif (5.6 mb)
Scatter plot of patient survival time against the value of tumor markers CEA (A), CA19-9 (B), and CA125 (C) (TIFF 5762 kb)

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Copyright information

© Springer Japan KK 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  • Tsutomu Namikawa
    • 1
  • Yasuhiro Kawanishi
    • 1
  • Kazune Fujisawa
    • 1
  • Eri Munekage
    • 1
  • Jun Iwabu
    • 1
  • Masaya Munekage
    • 1
  • Hiromichi Maeda
    • 2
  • Hiroyuki Kitagawa
    • 1
  • Michiya Kobayashi
    • 2
    • 3
  • Kazuhiro Hanazaki
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of SurgeryKochi Medical SchoolKochiJapan
  2. 2.Cancer Treatment CenterKochi Medical School HospitalKochiJapan
  3. 3.Department of Human Health and Medical SciencesKochi Medical SchoolKochiJapan

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