Fig. 6

a–c ROC curves for the decrease of the three TMs to predict the pathological complete response (pCR) after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The changes of TMs were compared with baseline level and are based on the following classification rules in CEA (a), CA19-9 (b), and CA72-4 (c) elevation > 50%, elevation > 20% but < 50%, elevation < 20%, decline < 20%, decline > 20% but < 50% and decline > 50% of the baseline levels. The figure shows the of these markers decrease of CEA (AUC: 0.544, 95% CI: 0.433–0.655), CA19-9 (AUC: 0.458, 95% CI: 0.371–0.545) and CA72-4 (AUC: 0.485, 95% CI: 0.384–0.586) was not statistically significant c. d The time-dependent AUC for prediction of risk of PFS for the level change in CEA, CA19-9, CA72-7 are also plotted. All three markers fluctuated around the reference line throughout the follow-up months, indicating there is no prognostic value for PFS among changes of CEA, CA19-9, and CA72-4 during NACT period