Prognostic significance of serum tumor marker normalization in the perioperative period for patients with advanced gastric cancer

BACKGROUND: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NCT) was developed to improve the prognosis of patients with advanced gastric cancer (AGC). Some studies have confirmed the diagnostic and prognostic value of various serum tumor markers in gastric cancer. However, most of these studies were focused on the value of preoperative and postoperative tumor markers in patients undergoing surgery with or without adjuvant therapy, and only a few studies focused on AGC patients undergoing NCT. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed the data of consecutive patients with histologically confirmed AGC who received NCT prior to surgical resection at Zhejiang Cancer Hospital from January 2010 to September 2018. The prognostic impact of tumor markers before and after NCT, including Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), Carbohydrate antigen199 (CA199), Carbohydrate antigen125 (CA125), Alpha-FetoProtein (AFP), Carbohydrate antigen242 (CA242), and Carbohydrate antigen724 (CA724), were evaluated using Kaplan-Meier log-rank survival analysis. The association between tumor marker normalization during preoperative chemotherapy and clinicopathological characteristics was also investigated. RESULTS: Four hundred and seventy-two patients were included in the study. The levels of CEA, CA199, CA125, CA242, and CA724 before NCT could predict prognosis, and the levels of CA199, CA125, CA242, and CA724 after NCT were correlated with prognosis. The overall survival (OS) rate decreased with an increasing number of positive tumor markers before and after preoperative chemotherapy. Tumor marker abnormalization after NCT was not related to chemotherapy, whereas patients with tumor marker normalization after NCT obtained survival benefits. CONCLUSIONS: Tumor markers before and after NCT, such as CA199, CA125, CA242, and CA724, have a discriminatory ability for patients with GC. The normalization of tumor markers after NCT was associated with better survival.