Comparative Prognostic Significance of CEA and CA15-3 in Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide, particularly among women. Thus, it is critical to have reliable biomarkers for prognosis and metastasis detection. This retrospective study compared the prognostic utility of serum tumour markers CEA and CA15-3 in 117 female breast cancer patients admitted to Lattakia University Hospital. Patients were stratified by histopathological type, molecular subtype, tumour stage, size, and metastasis location. Patients were stratified by histopathological type, molecular subtype, tumour stage, size, and metastasis location. Elevated CA15-3 levels were significantly associated with advanced tumour stage (P<0.05) and metastatic disease (P<0.0001), but not with specific metastatic sites, tumour size, or molecular subtype (P>0.05). In contrast, while CEA levels were not significantly elevated in advanced tumour stages, they correlated with larger tumour size (P<0.05) and metastasis (P<0.001), particularly liver metastasis (P<0.05).Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that elevated CEA (>5 ng/mL) was significantly associated with worse 5-year overall survival (27% vs. 68%, P<0.001), whereas CA15-3 (>35 IU/mL) was not (50% vs. 75%, P>0.05). These findings highlight CEA’s potential as a prognostic biomarker, particularly for liver metastasis. The controversial results of our study support using CEA in clinical surveillance for breast cancer.