Currently, no established marker exists for predicting peritoneal metastasis progression during chemotherapy, although they are major interruptive factors in sequential chemotherapy in patients with advanced gastric cancer (AGC). This multicenter retrospective study was conducted from June 2015 to July 2019, analyzing 73 patients with AGC who underwent taxane-plus-ramucirumab (TAX/RAM) therapy and had their serum carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA125) concentrations measured. Of 31 patients with elevated CA125 levels above a cutoff of 35 U/mL, 25 (80.6%) had peritoneal metastasis. The CA125 concentrations before TAX/RAM treatment were associated with ascites burden. The overall survival was significantly shorter in the CA125-elevated group. CA125 kinetics, measured at a median of 28 days after chemotherapy, were associated with the ascites response (complete or partial response: -1.86%/day; stable disease: 0.28%/day; progressive disease: 2.33%/day). Progression-free survival in the CA125-increased group, defined by an increase of 0.0067%/day using receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, was significantly poorer among patients with peritoneal metastases. In conclusion, this study highlights that CA125 kinetics can serve as an early predictor for the progression of peritoneal metastasis during TAX/RAM treatment.
Keywords: ascites burden; carbohydrate antigen 125 kinetics; gastric cancer; peritoneal metastases.