Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Aug 15, 2025; 17(8): 108016
Published online Aug 15, 2025. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v17.i8.108016
Correlation between baseline magnetic resonance imaging features and serum carcinoembryonic antigen levels in patients with primary rectal cancer
Peng Wang, Wen-Na Zhao, Jun Han, Kai-Xuan Wang, Xiao-Feng Yang, Yi-Juan Huang
Peng Wang, Department of Infectious Diseases, First Hospital of Jiaxing, Affiliated Hospital of Jiaxing University, Jiaxing 314000, Zhejiang Province, China
Wen-Na Zhao, Jun Han, Kai-Xuan Wang, Xiao-Feng Yang, Yi-Juan Huang, Department of Radiology, First Hospital of Jiaxing, Affiliated Hospital of Jiaxing University, Jiaxing 314000, Zhejiang Province, China
Co-first authors: Peng Wang and Wen-Na Zhao.
Author contributions: Wang P and Zhao WN contributed equally to this work, including conceptualization, data curation, methodology, software, writing original draft as the co-first authors of the paper; Zhao WN and Wang KX contributed to formal analysis, project administration, and visualization; Huang YJ contributed to investigation, supervision, validation, writing review and editing; all of the authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript to be published.
Supported by Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China, No. LTGY24H160006; and Jiaxing Medical Key Discipline, No. 2023-ZC-015.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of First Hospital of Jiaxing.
Informed consent statement: All study participants or their legal guardian provided informed written consent about personal and medical data collection prior to study enrolment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at huangyijuan2006@zjxu.edu.cn Participants gave informed consent for data sharing.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yi-Juan Huang, MD, Department of Radiology, First Hospital of Jiaxing, Affiliated Hospital of Jiaxing University, No. 1882 Central South Road, Nanhu District, Jiaxing 314000, Zhejiang Province, China. huangyijuan2006@zjxu.edu.cn
Received: April 15, 2025
Revised: May 28, 2025
Accepted: July 2, 2025
Published online: August 15, 2025
Processing time: 120 Days and 15.6 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings are widely used for the diagnosis and treatment of rectal cancer; however, research investigating their correlation remains limited.

AIM

To investigate the correlation between baseline MRI features and serum CEA levels in patients diagnosed with primary rectal cancer.

METHODS

Eighty patients (age: 42-78 years) diagnosed with primary rectal cancer were enrolled. Baseline MRI examinations were performed to evaluate tumor size, T stage, circumferential resection margin status, extramural vascular invasion (EMVI), and lymph node metastasis. Serum CEA levels were concurrently measured. Statistical methods were used to analyze correlations.

RESULTS

Tumor size, T stage, EMVI, and lymph node metastasis were significantly correlated with serum CEA levels (P < 0.05). Multivariate analysis identified T stage and lymph node metastasis as independent factors influencing serum CEA levels.

CONCLUSION

This study confirmed the correlation between baseline MRI features and serum CEA levels in patients with primary rectal cancer, highlighting their potential utility for precise diagnosis, staging, and prognostic evaluation.

Keywords: Rectal cancer; Serum carcinoembryonic antigen; Magnetic resonance imaging; Tumor; Diagnosis

Core Tip: The correlation between magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) features and serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels for diagnosing and treating rectal cancer currently remains under investigation. Accordingly, the present study explored this association in 80 patients diagnosed with primary rectal cancer at the authors’ hospital between July 2022 and August 2024. Patients were grouped according to clinical characteristics and treatment plans, and analysis confirmed a strong correlation between baseline MRI features and serum CEA levels.