The aim of this study was to evaluate the utility of selected tumor markers for the detection of lung cancer recurrence during follow-up.

The study group consisted of 109 patients and 109 healthy controls. The following biomarkers were selected: Carcinoembryonic antigen; cytokeratin fragment 19; neuron-specific enolase; tissue polypeptide-specific antigen; cytokeratin fragments 8, 18 and 19; insulin-like growth factor 1; pro-gastrin-releasing peptide; and 25-hydroxyvitamin D. The biomarkers were assessed individually or using a multivariate analysis.

Carcinoembryonic antigen [area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC)=0.6857, p<0.0001] and cytokeratin fragment 19 (AUC=0.6882, p<0.0001) proved best in detecting relapse. The multivariate model indicated insulin-like growth factor 1 (p=0.0006, AUC=0.6225) as the third most useful biomarker. The multivariate model using these three markers achieved the best AUC value of 0.7730 (p=0.0050).

We demonstrated that carcinoembryonic antigen and cytokeratin fragment 19 play a key role in the detection of lung cancer recurrence. A multivariate approach can increase the effectiveness of detection.