Purpose: The present study aimed to evaluate the clinical value of Combined Detection of serum soluble T-cell immunoglobulin 3 (sTim-3) with carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) or glycotype antigen 19– 9 (CA19-9) for Postoperative Recurrence of Colorectal Cancer (CRC) Diagnosis.
Patients and Methods: The serum sTim-3 was measured by highly sensitivity TRFIA, and serum CEA and CA19-9 were obtained through the collection of clinical data. Quantitative detection of serum sTim-3, CEA, CA19-9 in 90 patients after the CRC surgery (52 postoperative recurrence and 38 no-postoperative recurrence), 21 patients with colorectal benign tumors, and 67 healthy controls. To analyze the clinical diagnostic value of combined detection of sTim-3 with CEA or CA19-9 to test whether patients have recurrence after CRC surgery.
Results: The sTim-3 (15.94± 11.24ng/mL) in patients after CRC surgery was significantly higher than in healthy controls (8.95± 3.34ng/mL) and colorectal benign tumors (8.39± 2.28ng/mL) (P < 0.05), and sTim-3 (20.33± 13.04ng/mL) in CRC postoperative recurrent group was significantly higher than in the group without recurrence after CRC surgery (9.94± 2.36ng/mL) (P < 0.05). In terms of detecting postoperative recurrence after CRC surgery, combined detection of sTim-3 and CEA (AUC: 0.819, sensitivity: 80.77%, specificity: 65.79%), sTim-3 and CA19-9 test (AUC: 0.813, sensitivity: 69.23%, specificity: 97.30%) was significantly better than the CEA single test (AUC: 0.547, sensitivity: 63.16%, specificity: 48.08%) and CA19-9 single test (AUC: 0.675 sensitivity: 65.38%, specificity: 67.57%), Delong test P < 0.05.
Conclusion: The efficacy of CEA and CA19-9 single test was not optimal, and the combination of sTim-3 in serum could significantly improve the sensitivity and specificity of detecting patient recurrence after CRC surgery.
Keywords: serum tumor markers, Tim-3, time-resolved fluorescence immunoassay, colorectal cancer recurrence