Correlation between serum CA724 and gastric cancer: multiple analyses based on Chinese population

Serum tumor biomarker carbohydrate antigen 724 (CA724) is noticeable for gastric cancer. Correlation between CA724 and gastric cancer was investigated based on Chinese population. Chinese Biomedical Database, Chinese Journal Full-text Database and PubMed were searched. Gastric cancer patients were proven by biopsy, and control included health volunteers or benign gastric diseases. Participants received at least one test of CA724, CA125, CA153, CA199, CA242 or CEA. Meta-analysis, summary ROC (SROC) and post hoc analysis were performed by RevMan 5.0 and SPSS 11.5. Totally, 33 eligible studies were analyzed. Meta-analysis showed CA724 had the highest odds ratio 32.86 compared to control, orderly followed by CA242, CA199, CEA, CA125 and CA153. Accumulated accuracy rate of CA724 was 77 %, superior to others. In SROC analysis, specificity of all studies was above 0.70, but sensitivity of few studies was above 0.70; CA724 was selected as the preferable single test, followed by CA242, CA199, CEA, CA125 and CA153. If threshold of both specificity and sensitivity up to 0.70, CA153 was unacceptable; if up to 0.80, only CA724 and CA242 were considerable. In CA724-combined patterns, CA724+CEA+CA199 combination performed best by increasing sensitivity to 0.74 without impairing specificity, while CA724 + CA199 pattern was not a proper combination. CA724 was the most correlative serum tumor biomarker for gastric cancer in Chinese population. Sensitivity of serum CA724 is limited, but CA724+CEA+CA199 combination is considerable to improve sensitivity without impairing specificity.