Abstract:Objective To investigate the associations of serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and cancer antigen 153 (CA-153) with the grading of breast cancer and their diagnostic value.Methods Ninety-seven breast cancer patients who visited Hangzhou TCM Hospital Affiliated to Zhejiang Chinese Medical University and the First Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University from January 2021 to March 2024 were included as the disease group. Another 60 healthy women who underwent health checkups in the same hospitals during the same period of time were selected as the healthy group. Serum levels of CEA and CA-153 were compared between the disease group and the healthy group. Based on pathology assessed using the modified Bloom-Richardson grading system, patients in the disease group were categorized into grades I, II, and III. The serum levels of CEA and CA-153 were compared among patients with different grades, and the diagnostic performance of serum CA-153 and CEA for breast cancer pathological grading was evaluated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis.Results Compared with the healthy group, serum levels of CA-153 and CEA were elevated in patients in the disease group (P < 0.05). Serum levels of CA-153 and CEA were also higher in patients with grade III tumors than in those with grade I and II tumors (P < 0.05), and they were even higher in patients with grade II tumors than those with grade I tumors (P < 0.05). The ROC curve analysis revealed that the sensitivity of serum CA-153, CEA, and their combination for diagnosing breast cancer grades was 77.42% (95% CI: 0.685, 0.842), 87.10% (95% CI: 0.732, 0.937), and 80.65% (95% CI: 0.719, 0.914), with the specificity being 71.21% (95% CI: 0.653, 0.885), 80.30% (95% CI: 0.737, 0.927), and 90.91% (95% CI: 0.815, 0.963), respectively.Conclusion Serum CEA and CA-153 are highly expressed in breast cancer patients. Their levels increase with higher pathological grades of breast cancer, and the combined detection of these markers demonstrates higher diagnostic value for breast cancer grading.