Elevations of serum cancer biomarkers correlate with severity of COVID-19.

In this retrospective study, we evaluated the levels of a series of serum biomarkers in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients (mild: 131; severe: 98; critical: 23). We found that there were significant increases in levels of human epididymis protein 4 (HE4) (73. 6 ± 38.3 versus 46.5 ± 14.7, p<0.001), cytokeratin-19 fragment (CYFRA21-1) (2.2 ± 0.9 versus 1.9 ± 0.8, p<0.001), carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) (3.4 ± 2.2 versus 2.1 ± 1.2, p<0.001), carbohydrate antigens (CA) 125 (18.1 ± 13.5 versus 10.5 ± 4.6, p<0.001) and 153 (14.4 ± 8.9 versus 10.1 ± 4.4, p<0.001) in COVID-19 mild cases as compared to normal control subjects; their levels showed continuous and significant increases in severe and critical cases (HE4, CYFRA21-1 and CA125: p<0.001; CEA and CA153: p<0.01). Squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC) and CA199 increased significantly only in critical cases of COVID-19 as compared with mild and severe cases and normal controls (p<0.01). There were positive associations between levels of C-reactive protein and levels of HE4 (R= 0.631, p<0.001), CYFRA21-1(R= 0.431, p<0.001), CEA (R= 0.316, p<0.001), SCC (R= 0.351, p<0.001), CA153 (R= 0.359, p<0.001) and CA125 (R= 0.223, p=0.031). We concluded that elevations of serum cancer biomarkers positively correlated with the pathological progressions of COVID-19, demonstrating diffuse and acute lung injuries. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Journal of medical virology. 2020 Apr 29 [Epub ahead of print]

Xiuqi Wei, Jingyu Su, Kunyu Yang, Jiazhou Wei, Huimin Wan, Xiaoling Cao, Wenbin Tan, Hui Wang

Department of Laboratory Medicine, Cancer Center, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, P.R., China., Cancer Center, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430023, China., Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, School of Medicine, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, USA., Department of Laboratory Medicine, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, P.R., China.