Perioperative serum carcinoembryonic antigen: Powerful marker for prognostic prediction and adjuvant chemotherapy decision-making in patients with stage II and III colorectal cancer

Table 3 Univariate and multivariate stepwise Cox regression analysis (stepped by Akaike information criterion) of disease-free survival in training cohort

Variables	Level	Univariate analysis			Multivariate analysis
		HR	95%CI	P value	HR	95%CI	P value
Sex	Female (reference = male)	0.9560	0.8220-1.1100	0.5560
Age	Age (continuous)	1.0200	1.0100-1.0300	< 0.001	1.0219	1.0141-1.0298	< 0.001
Weight	Weight (continuous)	1.0000	0.9950-1.0100	0.9010
Height	Height (continuous)	1.0100	0.9970-1.0100	0.1810	1.0087	1.0004-1.0171	0.0411
Smoking	Positive (reference = negative)	0.9490	0.8190-1.1000	0.4880
Drinking	Positive (reference = negative)	1.1800	0.9950-1.4000	0.0564
Ileus	Positive (reference = negative)	1.4800	1.2300-1.7900	< 0.001	1.4622	1.2071-1.7712	0.0001
Diabetes	Positive (reference = negative)	1.9400	1.5300-2.4600	< 0.001	1.5164	1.1925-1.9285	0.0007
Hypertension	Positive (reference = negative)	1.4300	1.1300-1.8200	0.0034
Differentiation	Moderate (reference = well)	0.7580	0.2430-2.3600	0.6320	0.7395	0.2368-2.3092	0.6035
	Poor (reference = well)	1.1000	0.3500-3.4400	0.8740	0.9363	0.2974-2.9481	0.9105
Signet-ring cell carcinoma	Positive (reference = negative)	1.8000	1.1700-2.7800	0.0078
Mucinous carcinoma	Positive (reference = negative)	1.2400	1.0300-1.4900	0.0206	1.2125	1.0070-1.4599	0.0420
Location	Left colon (reference = rectum)	0.8000	0.6720-0.9520	0.0122	0.7983	0.6689-0.9528	0.0126
	Right colon (reference = rectum)	0.7800	0.6440-0.9440	0.0107	0.7979	0.6553-0.9715	0.0246
Perineural invasion	Positive (reference = negative)	1.7900	1.5100-2.1300	< 0.001	1.5455	1.2952-1.8441	< 0.001
Vascular cancer embolus	Positive (reference = negative)	1.6700	1.3500-2.0700	< 0.001	1.2415	0.9940-1.5506	0.0565
Microsatellite stability	MSS (reference = MSI-H)	1.1000	0.7800-1.5600	0.5810
	No detection (reference = MSI-H)	1.6700	1.2100-2.3200	0.0020
AJCC stage	Stage III (reference = stage II)	1.9800	1.7000-2.3000	< 0.001	1.7244	1.4716-2.0205	< 0.001
Pre-CEA	Pre-CEA (continuous)	1.0030	1.0020-1.0040	< 0.001
Post-CEA	Post-CEA (continuous)	1.0010	1.0010-1.0020	< 0.001	1.0007	1.0002-1.0011	0.0022
Pre-CA 19-9	Pre-CA 19-9 (continuous)	1.0000	1.0000-1.0000	< 0.001	1.0006	1.0000-1.0013	0.0578
Post-CA 19-9	Post-CA 19-9 (continuous)	1.0000	1.0000-1.0000	< 0.001

pre-CEA: Preoperative carcinoembryonic antigen; post-CEA: Postoperative carcinoembryonic antigen; AJCC: American Joint Committee on Cancer; CI: Confidence interval; HR: Hazard ratio; MSI-H: Microsatellite instability-high; MSS: Microsatellite stable.