Background Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most common malignant tumors in humans. Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), carbohydrate antigen (CA) 19-9, and CA72-4 are all serum tumor markers for diagnosis of gastric cancer. However, the results of studies reporting the diagnosis of the combined three varied. In this study, the combined diagnostic performance of these 3 serum tumor markers was systematically evaluated. Methods PubMed, Embase, The Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wanfang data were searched for literature on serum tumor markers CEA, CA19-9, and CA72-4 in the diagnosis of gastric cancer. The inclusion criteria were designed according to the Participants, Intervention, Control, Outcomes, Study (PICOS) principles. The Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (QUADAS) scoring scale was used to assess the quality of the literature. After extracting the data, Stata 16.0 software was used for meta-analysis. Results A total of 10 articles were finally included, and a total of 6,574 patients participated in diagnosis, 3,077 for confirmed GC and 3,497 for non-GC respectively. Meta-analysis results showed that the diagnostic sensitivity of the combined diagnosis of the 3 tumor markers was 0.67 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.54, 0.77], the specificity was 0.89 (95% CI: 0.82, 0.93), the positive likelihood ratio was 5.9 (95% CI: 3.5, 9.8), the negative likelihood ratio was 0.38 (95% CI: 0.27, 0.53), and the diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) was 16 (95% CI: 8, 32). The diagnostic sensitivity of CA72-4 diagnosis alone was 0.58 (95% CI: 0.40, 0.73), specificity was 0.86 (95% CI: 0.80, 0.90), the positive likelihood ratio was 4.0 (95% CI: 3.1, 5.1), the negative likelihood ratio was 0.49 (95% CI: 0.34, 0.71), and the DOR was 8 (95% CI: 5, 14). The area under the ROC curve (AUC) values of the combined three diagnosis and CA72-4 diagnosis alone were 0.87 (95% CI: 0.83, 0.89) and 0.84 (95% CI: 0.81, 0.87), respectively, the difference was statistically significant (Z=4.86, P<0.05). Discussion The combined use of the 3 tumor markers has higher sensitivity and specificity than single marker diagnosis in the diagnosis of gastric cancer.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.