Clinical use of tumor biomarkers in prediction for prognosis and chemotherapeutic effect in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

Abstract Background Growing evidence has indicated that tumor biomarkers, including cytokeratin 19 fragment antigen 21–1 (Cyfra21–1), carbohydrate antigen 19–9 (CA19–9), carbohydrate antigen 72–4 (CA72–4), carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC-Ag) were reported to be commonly used in diagnosis and prognosis in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). However, which is the best marker for predicting prognosis remains unknown. Few papers focused on the relationship between tumor biomarkers and postoperative treatment in ESCC. Methods A total of 416 ESCC patients were enrolled in this study. The association between tumor markers and overall survival (OS) was analyzed using Kaplan-Meier method with log-rank test, followed by multivariate Cox regression models. Results The results of Cox multivariate analysis indicated that among these tumor biomarkers, CA19–9 (≥ 37 vs. 0.05). Conclusions CEA and CA19–9 maybe are superior to other tumor biomarkers as prognostic indicators in ESCC. CA19–9, CEA, SCC-Ag may be useful in predicting the therapeutic effect of postoperative chemotherapy in ESCC.

Keywords

• Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma
• Prognosis
• Postoperative chemotherapy
• Therapeutic effect; tumor biomarker