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Clinical significance of a serum CA15-3 surge and the usefulness of CA15-3 kinetics in monitoring chemotherapy response in patients with metastatic breast cancer

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Abstract

One hundred and twenty-two patients in whom the CA 15-3 level showed either a decline (92 patients) or an acute surge followed by a decline (30 patients) after chemotherapy were included. The clinical characteristics between the two groups and the CA 15-3 kinetics using receiver operating characteristic curves were analyzed. Patients with a surge had a significantly higher risk of disease progression than patients without a surge (P = 0.004; odds ratio 2.62; 95% CI 1.45–4.72). The clinicopathologic characteristics were significantly different between the two groups with respect to the distribution of ER, PR, and HER2 status, relapse-free survival, and the severity and extent of the involved organs. For patients with a surge, a CA 15-3 slope threshold > −0.0038 was chosen with a sensitivity of 80.0% and a specificity of 80.4%. The area under the curve was 0.847 (95% CI 0.771–0.906; P = 0.0001). A significant correlation between PFS and CA 15-3 slope was shown with Cox-regression modeling (P = 0.036; hazard ratio [HR], 2.1; 95% CI 1.01–4.14).These kinetics may serve as a good predictive marker of treatment response and response duration.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Medicine, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, 50 Irwon-dong Gangnam-gu, Seoul, 135-710, Korea

    Hyo Song Kim, Yeon Hee Park, Min Jae Park, Myung Hee Chang, Hyun Jung Jun, Kyoung Ha Kim, Jin Seok Ahn, Won Ki Kang, Keunchil Park & Young-Hyuck Im

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  1. Hyo Song Kim
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  2. Yeon Hee Park
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  3. Min Jae Park
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  5. Hyun Jung Jun
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  6. Kyoung Ha Kim
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  9. Keunchil Park
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  10. Young-Hyuck Im
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Correspondence to Young-Hyuck Im.

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Kim, H.S., Park, Y.H., Park, M.J. et al. Clinical significance of a serum CA15-3 surge and the usefulness of CA15-3 kinetics in monitoring chemotherapy response in patients with metastatic breast cancer. Breast Cancer Res Treat 118, 89–97 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-009-0377-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-009-0377-2

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