Clinical Evaluation and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Serum Tumor Markers in Lung Cancer

The detection of serum tumor markers is valuable for the early diagnosis of lung cancer. Tumor markers are frequently used for the management of cancer patients. However, single markers are less efficient but marker combinations increase the cost, which is troublesome for clinics. To find an optimal serum marker combination panel that benefits the patients and the medical management system as well, four routine lung cancer serum markers (SCCA, NSE, CEA, and CYFRA21-1) were evaluated individually and in combination. Meanwhile, the costs and effects of these markers in clinical practice in China were assessed by cost-effectiveness analysis. As expected, combinations of these tumor markers improved their sensitivity for lung cancer and different combination panels had their own usefulness. NSE + CEA + CYFRA21-1 was the optimal combination panel with highest Youden's index (0.64), higher sensitivity (75.76%), and specificity (88.57%), which can aid the clinical diagnosis of lung cancer. Nevertheless, the most cost-effective combination was SCCA + CEA, which can be used to screen the high-risk group.