Serum CA19-9 is significantly up-regulated up to 2 years prior to diagnosis with pancreatic cancer: implications for early disease detection
Menée à partir d'échantillons sériques prélevés sur 154 patientes ménopausées atteintes d'un cancer du pancréas et sur 304 témoins, cette étude met en évidence une augmentation du niveau de l'antigène CA-19-9 deux ans avant le diagnostic de la maladie
Purpose : Biomarkers for the early detection of pancreatic cancer are urgently needed. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate whether increased levels of serum CA19-9, CA125, CEACAM1 and REG3A are present prior to clinical presentation of pancreatic cancer and to assess the performance of combined markers for early detection and prognosis.
Experimental Design : This nested case control study within UKCTOCS included 118 single- and 143 serial-serum samples from 154 post-menopausal women who were subsequently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and 304 matched non-cancer controls. Samples were split randomly into independent training and test sets. CA19-9, CA125, CEACAM1 and REG3A were measured using ELISA and/or CLIA. Performance of markers to detect cancers at different times prior to diagnosis and for prognosis was evaluated.
Results : At 95% specificity, CA19-9 (>37 U/mL) had a sensitivity of 68% up to 1 year, and 53% up to 2 yrs before diagnosis. Combining CA19-9 and CA125 improved sensitivity as CA125 was elevated (>30 U/mL) in ~20% of CA19-9-negative cases. CEACAM1 and REG3A were late markers adding little in combined models. Average lead times of 20-23 months were estimated for test-positive cases. Pre-diagnostic levels of CA19-9 and CA125 were associated with poor overall survival (HR 2.69 and 3.15, respectively).
Conclusions : CA19-9 and CA125 have encouraging sensitivity for detecting pre-clinical pancreatic cancer and both markers can be used as prognostic tools. This work challenges the prevailing view that CA19-9 is up-regulated late in the course of pancreatic cancer development.
Clinical Cancer Research , résumé, 2014