Previous studies have indicated that carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and cancer antigen 15C3 (CA15-3) levels are both impartial prognostic factors in breast cancer. and CA15-3 experienced shorter overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) rates than those in the low-level groups (= 0.022 and = 0.040, respectively) and DFS (p = SW033291 supplier 0.023 and p = 0.028, respectively). In addition, novel nomograms were established and validated to provide personal forecasts of OS and DFS for patients with TNBC. These novel nomograms may help physicians to select the optimal treatment plans to ensure the best outcomes for TNBC patients. Introduction Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is usually a hypotype SW033291 supplier of breast cancer that is immunohistochemically based on the unfavorable expression of the hormone receptors estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) and on the unfavorable amplification of HER2 amplification[1]. Even though incidence of TNBC only accounts for a small proportion (10C17%) of all breast cancers, most TNBC patients are diagnosed with higher lymph node metastasis and mortality risk than patients with other types of breast malignancy in the first five years[2C4]. Because of the absence of the expression of HER2 or ER and PR, chemotherapy is the only treatment choice for patients with TNBC[5]. However, once resistance to chemotherapy drugs occurs, the loss of life quality and sustained upward mortality rate of malignant patients will be out of control. Therefore, it is Rabbit Polyclonal to OR2T2 necessary to ascertain safe and practical evaluation indicators to assist both short-term and long-term treatment decisions of TNBC patients to improve survival rates. Recently, numerous studies have reported the opposite effects of some elevated blood biochemical values[6C9] and the predictive significance of pre-operative levels of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and malignancy antigen 15C3 (CA15-3)[10C13] in different tumor populations. In particular, the predictive effect of pre-operative CEA and CA15-3 levels in breast malignancy has gained increasing attention. Pre-operative CEA and CA15-3 levels may offer useful information for the prognosis of breast malignancy[14C16]. However, the predictive significance of these levels in breast malignancy remains ambiguous due to SW033291 supplier the limitation of the number of cases[13,16,17]. Recently, nomograms have been shown to provide more precise individualized disease-related risk estimations compared to the traditional TNM staging systems[18,19]. Nomograms provide a visual representation of the regression equation and could help physicians to better utilize sophisticated statistical results. However, there is a lack of SW033291 supplier related literature providing accurate predictive nomograms of CEA and CA15-3, which are common clinical hematology indexes. Therefore, the objective and significance of this study were to inquire into the prognostic functions of pre-therapeutic CEA and CA15-3 levels by building a nomogram for resected TNBC based on known traditional clinicopathological prognostic factors. Materials and Methods Patients and methods Clinical analysis was performed for 247 female patients, and all of them were definitively diagnosed with triple-negative breast malignancy and SW033291 supplier were treated with altered radical mastectomy at the Sun Yat-sen University Malignancy Center (SYSUCC) in Guangzhou, China, between January 2004 and December 2009. The ethics boards of Sun Yat-sen University Malignancy Center granted ethical approval (NO.YB2016-002-03), and all patients provided written information consent. The inclusion criteria were as follows: obvious pathological reports of TNBC, with no prior pre-operative anti-cancer treatments before the collection of autologous whole blood and serum tumor marker data. The exclusion criteria were as follows: (1) patients with coexisting cancers; (2) initial records of blood biochemical assessments after treatment; (3) active infectious or other autoimmune disorders; (4) people without follow up; and (5) the lack of other necessary information. Clinical data collection The medical records were evaluated by electronic chart review, and each patients medical history, age, BMI, menopausal status, and main pathological information (such as tumor size, lymph node status, hormonal status, HER2 status, histological grade, and laboratory data) were obtained. The clinical typing and staging of the malignant tumor were identified by the TNM staging system according to the AJCC (American Joint Committee on Malignancy Classification, 7th edition, http://www.cancerstaging.org). Triple-negative breast cancer,.