Prognostic role of serum carcinoembryonic antigen in patients receiving liver resection for colorectal cancer liver metastasis: A meta-analysis

Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is a broad-spectrum tumor marker for differential diagnosis, monitoring, and response assessment of a variety of malignancies. To evaluate whether serum CEA could predict the prognosis in patients with colorectal cancer liver metastasis (CRCLM) before and after liver resection (LR). PubMed, Embase, Cochrane, and Web of Science were systematically searched to retrieve literature, with a search cut-off date of February 27, 2023. Articles were strictly screened for inclusion according to pre-specified inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data were pooled and analyzed using Stata 16.0. This meta-analysis included 36 studies involving a total of 11143 CRCLM patients. The results showed that a high pre-LR serum CEA level was correlated with poor overall survival (OS) [hazard ratio (HR) = 1.61, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.49-1.75, < 0.001] and recurrence-free survival (HR = 1.27, 95%CI: 1.11-1.45, < 0.001) in CRCLM patients. A high post-LR serum CEA level predicted poor OS (HR = 2.66, 95%CI: 2.10-3.38, < 0.001). A comparison by treatment modality, analysis modality, patient source, and cutoff-value showed that overall, high preoperative and postoperative serum CEA levels remained correlated with a poor prognosis. This study concluded that high pre-LR and post-LR serum CEA levels were significantly correlated with a poor prognosis in CRCLM patients.