Preoperative Serum Tumor Marker Levels in Gastric Cancer

Objective: Tumor markers have shown little benefit as a method for screening. However, they can be used clinically for the monitoring of tumor recurrence and used as prognostic factors because higher levels have been observed in advanced disease. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the preoperative tumor marker levels and different clinical aspects of gastric cancer.

Methods: One hundred and six consecutive patients with confirmed diagnosis of gastric cancer and 106 subjects (age and sex matched) with no malignancy as control group were included prospectively in this study in 3 years. The relationships between tumor markers CEA, CA 19-9 and stage of disease, tumor differentiation, presence of ringlet cell type, presence of peritoneal carcinomatozis were investigated.

Results: The serum CEA and CA 125 levels were found to be significantly elevated in gastric cancer patients than in controls. The serum level of CEA had showed a significant elevation with the presence of distant metastasis. The CA 19-9 and CA 125 levels had showed significant elevations with the presence of peritoneal carcinomatozis.

Conclusions: This study showed that there is a limited clinical benefit of preoperative tumor marker measurements in gastric cancer such as estimation of peritoneal dissemination.