Role of serum CA125 and CA199 concentration in diagnosis and prognosis evaluation of lung cancer patients

Carbohydrate antigens (CA) 125 and 199 have now been widely used in diagnosis in lung cancer. However, the role of metastasis and prognosis of these two markers remains controversial and needs further clarification. Here we retrospectively analyzed CA125 and CA199 in 430 lung cancer patients. All patients were categorized to three groups (negative, moderate and high) according to the increased serum levels of CA125 and CA199. The association between different groups and clinical characteristics, metastasis occurrence and survival status was conducted by SPSS17.0. Then multivariate analyses of Cox regression hazard model were performed to evaluate the prognostic parameters for survival. The results indicated that CA125 related closely to age, tumor types, stages and occurrences of bone and pleural metastasis. While CA199 only related to tumor types and liver metastasis. Kaplan-Meier analyses indicated that increased levels in both CA125 (P<0.001) and CA199 (P<0.05) were related significantly to survival status of lung cancer patients. Cox regression model suggested that CA125 could be used as independent factor in prediction of poor prognosis. In specific tumor type analysis, it was also found that CA125, not CA199, could be independent indicator of poor prognosis in adenocarcinoma patients. Our results indicated that CA125 were more important in lung cancer diagnosis and prognosis than CA199.