Abstract
Background
Tumor biomarkers represent an effective tool for diagnostics and follow-up monitoring of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We focused on predictive and prognostic role of seven following tumor biomarkers: carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), cytokeratin-19 fragments (CYFRA 21-1), MonoTotal, neuron-specific enolase (NSE), chromogranin A, thymidine kinase (TK) and squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCCA) in patients with advanced-stage NSCLC treated with pemetrexed-based chemotherapy.
Methods
Totally 114 patients with advanced-stage (IIIB or IV) non-squamous NSCLC treated with pemetrexed-based chemotherapy (monotherapy or combination with platinum derivative) were included. Comparison of survival of patients [progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS)] according to the level of assessed tumor markers was performed using the log-rank test.
Results
We observed significantly shorter OS for patients with high pretreatment levels of CYFRA 21-1 (10.3 vs. 23.4 months; P<0.001), neuron-specific enolase (NSE) (1.6 vs. 13.5 months; P=0.003) and thymidin kinase (TK) (11.3 vs. 23.4 months; P=0.003).
Conclusions
CYFRA 21-1, NSE and TK are feasible biomarkers for estimation of overall prognosis of patients, however none of measured serum tumor markers could specifically predict the efficacy of pemetrexed-based chemotherapy.
Keywords: Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), tumor markers, pemetrexed