Preliminary evaluation of clinical utility of CYFRA 21-1, CA 72-4, NSE, CA19-9 and CEA in stomach cancer

Abstract

Background: Although various tumor markers have been utilized in management of stomach cancer (SC), only a few reports have described relevance of examples such as CYFRA 21-1 and neuron-specific enolase (NSE). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential diagnostic performance of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), CA 19-9, CA72-4, CYFRA 21-1 and NSE in patients with SC.

Materials and methods: Ninety-six SC patients with pathologic confirmation between 2012 and 2013 were enrolled. Serum levels of five tumor markers were analyzed using a solid-phase immunoradiometric assay. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted for the five tumor markers to investigate their diagnostic powers and adjusted cutoff values derived from analysis of ROC curves were evaluated to calculate the sensitivity of each for SC with recommended cutoff values.

Results: Based on two different cutoff values (recommended and adjusted), CYFRA 21-1 (≥2.0 and 1.2 ng/ml) had a respective sensitivity of 50% and 78.1%, compared with 8.3% and 18.8% for CEA (≥7.0 and 3.9 ng/ml), 15.6% and 18.8% for CA 19-9 (≥37 and 26.7 ng/ml), 28.1% and 9.6% for CA 72-4 (≥4.0 and 13 ng/ml) and 7.3% and 7.3% for NSE (≥14.7 and 15.0 ng/ml) in the initial staging of primary SC. The area under the curve (AUC) for CYFRA 21-1, with a value of 0.978 (95% confidence interval, 0.964-0.991) was comparatively the highest. Univariate analysis revealed significant relationships between tumor marker level and lymph node involvement, metastasis and staging with CYFRA 21-1, CA 72-4 and NSE.

Conclusions: CYFRA 21-1 was the most sensitive tumor marker and showed the most powerful diagnostic performance among the five SC tumor markers. NSE and CA 72-4 are significantly related to lymph node involvement, metastasis or stage. Further evaluations are warranted to clarify the clinical usefulness and prognostic prediction of these markers in SC.