Role of carbohydrate antigen 19-9, carcinoembryonic antigen, and carbohydrate antigen 125 as the predictors of resectability and survival in the patients of Carcinoma Gall Bladder

Saumya Agrawal1, Amit Gupta1, Sweety Gupta2, Bela Goyal3, Rohik Anjum T. Siddeek1, Deepak Rajput1, Udit Chauhan4, Sanjeev Kishore5, Manoj Gupta2, Ravi Kant1
1Department of Surgery, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India
2Department of Radiation Oncology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India
3Department of Biochemistry, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India
4Department of Radiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India
5Department of Pathology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India
DOI: 10.4103/jcar.JCar_10_20

ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) have been reported in previous studies to assess the prognosis of gall bladder cancer (GBC) individually and in combination. However, the evidence of utility of preoperative CA 19-9, CEA and carbohydrate antigen 125
( CA 125) in determining the resectability and prognosis of GBC is still lacking. In the present study we correlated the serum levels of tumor markers CA 19-9, CEA and CA 125 individually and combined to determine the resectability and prognosis of the GBC.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Seventy one diagnosed patients of GBC between January 2018 and September 2019 were included in the present study. Serum CA 19-9, CEA and CA 125 were determined by chemiluminescence. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate the role of tumor markers in determining the resectability of GBC. The Kaplan Meier survival curves were made and log rank analysis was performed to assess the prognostic role of tumor markers in terms of overall median survival.
RESULTS: All the three tumor markers CA19-9, CEA and CA 125 showed high discriminatory power in determining the resectability with respective area under curve of 0.76, 0.68 and 0.78 as determined by ROC. Median survival in patients with high serum CA 19-9, CA 125 was significantly lower than patients with normal serum CA 19-9, CA 125 whereas no significant difference was observed in case of CEA.
CONCLUSION: The present study suggested that CA 19-9, CEA and CA 125 can predict resectability in GBC and raised levels of CA 19-9 and CA 125 can predict poor prognosis in patients with elevated levels.

Keywords: Gall bladder cancer, resection, survival, tumor markers