Level of the carcinoembryonic antigen(CEA) was studied in lung cancer patients with different driving gene, to explore the difference of their CEA .

All 210 cases of patients with lung cancer were recruited in Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine Tang Du Hospital. CEA was measured by Electro-Chemiluminescence Immunoassay (ECLI). And their mutations were measured by amplification refractory mutation system (ARMS). Then the CEA of lung cancer patients with different driving gene was analyzed.

The majority of lung cancer patients with gene mutation were female (52.46%), while those without gene mutation were mainly male (67.39%). The difference was statistically significant (P=0.004) in them. The CEA level in lung cancer patients with gene mutation [11.43 (4.32~46.82) ng/ml] was significantly higher than that in patients without gene mutation [4.52 (2.07~14.87) ng/ml] (P<0.001), while there was no significant difference in CEA levels among patients with different mutations such as e19del, L858R, KRAS, EML4-ALK and ROS1, as well as combination mutation and rare mutation (P>0.05). Then, the lung cancer patients with positive gene detection were divided into EGFR group, KRAS group, EML4-ALK group and ROS1 group. Further analysis found that the majority of lung cancer patients in KRAS group were male (76.47%), while EML4-ALK group was mainly female (90.91%). There was significant gender difference between the KRAS group and EML4-ALK group (P=0.007), but there was no significant difference in age and CEA level among the four groups (P>0.05).

Although the serum CEA can probably serve as marker of prediction mutations in patients with lung cancer, it has no predictive value for sensitive targets for genetically positive lung cancer patients.