The panel of CEA + IL-8 had the best overall performance in predicting lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis of lung cancer, with AUC, sensitivity, and specificity of 0.686, 74.6%, and 62.2%, respectively, compared to 0.793, 85.3% and 67.7% for distant metastasis, and the remaining models showing overall lower performance. The gene discussed is CXCL8; the disease is lung carcinoma.