Objective To investigate the values of combined determination of pleural effusion and serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), cytokeratin 19 fragment (CYFRA21-1), neuron-specific enolase (NSE), and squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC-Ag) in diagnosis of lung cancer. Methods 101 patients with pleural effusion were reviewed retrospectively. Expressions of CEA, CYFRA21-1, NSE and SCC-Ag in pleural fluid and serum were detected; the optimum cut-off points resulting from the best sensitivity-specificity balance in the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves were constructed. The expressions of the tumor markers were compared among different pathological types of lung cancer. Results The levels of tumor markers in both pleural effusion and serum were significantly higher in patients with lung cancer than the benign group (P < 0.05). The expression levels and positive rate of CEA for lung adenocarcinoma, NSE for small cell lung cancer, and CYFRA21-1and SCC-Ag for pulmonary squamous cell carcinoma were higher than any other single detection (P < 0.05). Combined detection of the tumor markers in pleural fluid and serum improved the detection rate of lung cancer. Conclusions Combined detection of pleural effusion and serum tumor markers has important reference value in the detection of lung cancer and in pathological typing.

Objective To study the value of RDW in severity evaluation and prognostic assessment of COPD. Methods Retrospective study was carried out on 115 COPD patients and 50 healthy controls. Blood routine, CRP, IL-6 data were collected on admission aiming at analyzing RDW difference in patients and controls, severity, severity grading and evaluation of prognosis. Results The level of CRP, RDW, IL-6 and WBC in patients were higher than that of healthy controls(P < 0.05). Mild and moderate groups have no significant difference from each other in terms of RDW, CRP and IL-6 conparison, but the difference between any other two groups were significant. There were significant positive correlation between RDW and CRP, IL-6, and negative correlations between the post-bronchodilator FEV1% and RDW. The mortality rate for patients with higher RDW level was higher than those with normal RDW. Conclusion Elevated RDW levels on admission are associated with severity of patients with COPD. RDW may be a prognostic marker for COPD.