Elevated Preoperative Carcinoembryonic Antigen and Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Predict Shorter Survival in Patients with Sigmoid Colon Carcinoma

Abstract

We investigated the prognostic significance of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and their associations with clinicopathological features in patients with sigmoid colon carcinoma (SCC). We retrospectively reviewed patients with SCC treated with curative surgery from January 2001 to June 2010 at our hospital. Patients' general, clinical, histopathologic, and serum biomarkers were analyzed. We measured VEGF in 176 sets of SCC tissues and adjacent noncancerous tissue samples with immunohistochemical and Elivison staining. CEA was measured with a tumor biomarker chip. Their correlations with clinicopathologic factors were analyzed by chi-square test. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to identify factors associated with overall survival (OS). Of the 176 patients, 69.3% were alive and 30.7% had died. In univariate analysis, serum CEA level (p = 0.002, OR = 2.394, 1.392 - 4.116), tumor VEGF (p = 0.04, OR = 1.968, 1.032 - 3.752), lymph node metastasis (N, p = 0.000, OR = 3.712, 2.064 - 6.675), T stage (T, p = 0.016, OR = 5.706, 1.382 - 23.552) and differentiation (p = 0.000) were the prognostic factors for OS. In stratified analysis, combined elevated serum CEA and tumor VEGF levels were associated with poorer prognosis. Elevated preoperative serum CEA and tumor VEGF were predictors of poor prognosis for patients with SCC.