Diagnostic role of carbohydrate antigen 72-4 for gastrointestinal malignancy screening in Chinese patients: A...

Over the past decades, carbohydrate antigen 72-4 (CA72-4) was thought to be a tumor marker that was elevated in healthy individuals and patients with malignancies, including gastrointestinal (GI), ovarian, endometrial and lung malignancies. Furthermore, studies found that elevated serum CA72-4 might predict digestive tumors, especially gastric tumors, although there was still neither a sensitive nor specific tumor biomarker for gastric cancer (GC). This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of CA72-4 in predicting malignancies, especially GC.

Altogether 403 patients underwent a CA72-4 test after admission to the Department of Gastroenterology in Changhai Hospital, the Second Military Medical University, from 1 June 2015 to 31 October 2015. Their age and sex, main symptoms, and final diagnoses were summarized.

The positive predictive value, negative predictive value, positive likelihood ratio and negative likelihood ratio of CA72-4 for diagnosing GC were 31.58%, 79.17%, 1.70, and 0.97, respectively. In the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, the area under the ROC curve for discriminating between patients with GC and those without was 0.62.

Performing a CA72-4 test on its own is of little use for predicting malignances, especially GC, in patients with GI diseases.