The role of serum carcinoembryonic antigen in predicting responses to chemotherapy and survival in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

BACKGROUND

Previous studies indicated that carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) could predict the therapeutic objective response (OR) and overall survival (OS) of patients with cancers, including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, the role it could play in evaluating therapeutic responses and OS in patients with NSCLC requires further elucidation. Herein, we investigated the potential role of CEA in predicting OR and OS in patients with NSCLC.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

For this retrospective study, the medical records of 689 patients with NSCLC who were treated at Nanjing Jinling Hospital between January 2000 and August 2011 were reviewed. Serum levels of CEA of these patients were measured before and after chemotherapy. The relatedness between CEA levels and OR, and between CEA and OS were investigated for correlations via a series of statistical analyses.

RESULTS

The baseline serum CEA level of 689 patients was 54.18 ± 143.45 ng/mL. Serum CEA significantly decreased after two cycles of chemotherapy (t = 2.196, P = 0.031). The receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve analysis showed that a 5.28% reduction in CEA level was an appropriate cut-off value for predicting the OR to chemotherapy, with a sensitivity of 61.3% and a specificity of 62.4%. The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis indicated no significant correlation between baseline CEA and OS (P = 0.079).

CONCLUSION

Our study shows that while the baseline level of CEA was not a prognostic factor, the post-treatment reduction of CEA can predict the OR in patients with NSCLC.