Elevated serum CA199 levels in patients suffering type 2 diabetes vs. various types of cancer - Research Article

Q: What is CA199 and why is it important in this study?

CA199 is a tumor marker used to assess tumor-related changes. The study focuses on how CA199 serum levels differ between type 2 diabetes and various cancers.

Q: How were participants and serum CA199 data collected?

Serum CA199 laboratory results were screened for 2020–2023, including healthy controls, type 2 diabetes patients, and patients with 16 cancer types. Individuals using drugs known to affect CA199 and certain cross-category cases were excluded.

Q: What were the main findings when comparing CA199 levels?

Serum CA199 levels were elevated in multiple cancers and were also significantly elevated in type 2 diabetes versus healthy controls. The degree of elevation in diabetes was not significantly different from several cancer types such as esophagus, breast, prostate, bladder, lymphoma, thyroid, intracranial tumors, and nasopharyngeal and laryngeal cancers.

Sep 21, 2026

Uploaded by Jiven

Carbohydrate antigen 199 (CA199) is a standard tumor marker reported to be elevated in patients with diabetes, yet prior work lacks a systematic measurement and head-to-head comparison between diabetes and multiple cancers. This study describes longitudinal serum CA199 changes across type 2 diabetes and 16 cancer types, comparing cancer groups, type 2 diabetes patients, and healthy controls, and further assessing whether CA199 elevations in diabetes match those seen in specific cancers.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages5

Reading Time13 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Role of CA199 as a tumor marker

Diabetes prevalence and CA199 correlations

Study rationale

Methods

Case collection

Zhuang et al. BMC Endocrine Disorders (2024) 24:9 BMC Endocrine Disorders [https://doi.org/10.1186/s12902-024-01539-y](https://doi.org/10.1186/s12902-024-01539-y) RESEARCH Open Access Elevated serum CA199 levels in patients suffering type 2 diabetes vs. various types of cancer Yong Zhuang 1, Qingyan Cai 1, Xin Hu 1 and Huibin Huang 1* Abstract Aims Carbohydrate antigen 199 (CA199) is a standard tumor marker, and recent studies have found elevated in CA199 levels in patients with diabetes. However, there is no systematic measurement and comparison of serum CA199 levels in patients with diabetes and cancer. Here, a detailed description of the changes in serum CA199 levels in patients with type 2 diabetes and various cancers was explored. Methods A total of 5,641 participants were screened for clinical laboratory test results of serum CA199 levels over the past three years (2020–2023) . This study included 2,464 healthy controls, 688 patients with type 2 diabetes, and 2,489 patients with 16 different types of cancer. Each type of cancer had more than 30 independent serum CA199 level test results. The serum CA199 levels were compared between cancer groups, type 2 diabetes patients, and healthy controls. Additionally, the CA199 levels of cancer patients were compared with those of patients with type 2 diabetes. Results The serum CA199 levels of esophagus cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer, breast cancer, rectum cancer, prostate cancer, bladder cancer, liver cancer, gastric cancer, cervical cancer, colon cancer, lymphoma, thyroid cancer, intracranial tumors, and nasopharyngeal laryngeal cancer were found to be elevated compared to healthy controls (P < 0. 01) . In addition, the serum CA199 levels of patients with type 2 diabetes were also significantly elevated compared to healthy controls (P < 0. 01) . Moreover, the degree of elevation in serum CA199 levels in patients with type 2 diabetes was not significantly different from that observed in some types of cancer, such as esophagus cancer (P = 0 . 163), breast cancer (P = 0 . 927), prostate cancer (P = 1 . 000), bladder cancer (P = 0 .406), Lymphoma (P = 0 . 975), thyroid cancer (P = 1 . 000), intracranial tumors (P = 0 . 161), nasopharyngeal and laryngeal cancer (P = 1 . 000) . Conclusions Serum CA199 levels also increase in type 2 diabetes, and the magnitude of the increase is similar to that seen in some cancers. Keywords CA199, Tumour markers, Tumours, Type 2 diabetes *Correspondence: Huibin Huang [neifenmi62qu@163.com](neifenmi62qu@163.com) 1Department of Endocrinology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University, No. 950 Donghai Street, Fengze District, Quanzhou City, Fujian Province 362000, China © The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit [http://creativecommons.org/l](http://creativecommons.org/l)icenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ([http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/](http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. Zhuang et al. BMC Endocrine Disorders (2024) 24:9 Introduction Carbo

FAQs

What is CA199 and why is it important in this study?

CA199 is a tumor marker used to assess tumor-related changes. The study focuses on how CA199 serum levels differ between type 2 diabetes and various cancers.

How were participants and serum CA199 data collected?

Serum CA199 laboratory results were screened for 2020–2023, including healthy controls, type 2 diabetes patients, and patients with 16 cancer types. Individuals using drugs known to affect CA199 and certain cross-category cases were excluded.

What were the main findings when comparing CA199 levels?

Serum CA199 levels were elevated in multiple cancers and were also significantly elevated in type 2 diabetes versus healthy controls. The degree of elevation in diabetes was not significantly different from several cancer types such as esophagus, breast, prostate, bladder, lymphoma, thyroid, intracranial tumors, and nasopharyngeal and laryngeal cancers.

Sep 21, 2026

Uploaded by Jiven