Journal of the Chinese Medical Association : JCMA
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Most clinical guidelines recommend measuring postoperative carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels to predict the prognosis of colorectal cancer. However, type II diabetes can increase serum CEA levels which may bias the prognosis. Thus, we aimed to evaluate the impact of type II diabetes on CEA prognostic accuracy in colorectal cancer. ⋯ Type II diabetes was associated with higher preoperative and postoperative CEA levels in patients with colorectal cancer. Consequently, elevated postoperative CEA level was not associated with shorter 3-year DFS in patients with type II diabetes, as opposed to patients without type II diabetes. Therefore, colorectal cancer patients with type II diabetes may need alternative tumor markers to be used during the surveillance strategy after curative surgery.