Serum carcinoembryonic antigen in clinical disorders

Abstract

SUMMARY Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels have been measured in the serum of 490 patients and 93 normal controls using the double antibody radioimmunoassay technique. Levels were elevated in 71 of patients with carcinomata of the gastrointestinal tract and in 42% with other types of malignancy. In patients with non-neoplastic disease of the gastrointestinal tract and liver, elevated levels were found in 14 and 66 % respectively. In general the CEA level tends to be higher in cancer patients with haematogenous dissemination. Following complete surgical removal of a tumour, levels fall to normal within 14 days in the majority of patients. Of 33 patients studied during follow up, elevated levels were found in 12, 10 of whom had evidence of recurrence.The significance of these findings and the possible application of CEA assay in clinical practice are discussed.In recent years many attempts have been made to detect macro-molecular substances specific for human tumours, which if liberated into the body fluids could form the basis of an assay useful in the early diagnosis and management of malignant disease. One of the best such examples is the assay of chorionic gonadotrophin in patients with choriocarcinomata (Bagshawe, 1969).Well documented evidence has existed for some time of specific antigens in experimentally induced tumours of animals (Old, Boyse, Clarke, and Carswell, 1962 (Gold and Freedman, 1965a). They later detected the same antigen in extracts of other gastrointestinal carcinomata together with extracts of foetal intestine, liver, and pancreas during the first two trimesters of pregnancy (Gold and Freedman, 1965b colon (Martin and Martin, 1970) and pooled normal serum (Chu, Reynoso, and Hansen, 1972). This change in view of the specificity of CEA is reflected in the reports of radioimmunoassay results in a wide range of clinical groups. An initial claim of 97% positivity in patients with carcinoma of the colon

Single-Domain Antibody–Based and Linker-Free Bispecific Antibodies Targeting FcγRIII Induce Potent Antitumor Activity without Recruiting Regulatory T Cells

“…Here, we show that bsFab-dependent cytotoxicity is only slightly impacted by the concentration of soluble CEA exceeding concentrations found in the majority of patients with cancer (46). Thus, as already suggested by some clinical studies using anti-CEA antibodies (47,48), soluble CEA should not have a significant impact on the clinical efficacy of the bsAb.…”

Association of medullary carcinoma of the thyroid with carcinoembryonic antigen

“…Furthermore, the serum levels were in excess of 40 ng/ml in the majority (92%) of patients including those with localized disease. The levels are even greater than those in carcinomata ofthe gastrointestinal tract, bronchus and breast, in which serum CEA above this level is seen in only 12-13% of early and localized lesions and in 56-77% of distant metastases (Laurence et al, 1 972b;Booth et al, 1973). It may be ascribed to the high content of CEA in the tumour cells and also to abundant blood supply to the endocrine organ.…”

“…Shown in Table II (Dykes and King, 1972;Laurence et al, 1972a,b;Booth et al, 1973;Hansen et al, 1974 (Reynoso et al, 1972) and in about half the patients with the other 2 diseases (Dykes and King, 1972;Laurence and Neville, 1972a Early sporadic studies on thyroid diseases showed that a positive CEA result was found in only one out of 9 patients with thyroid carcinoma but in none of 8 patients with adenoma or nodular goitre (Laurence et al, 1972b;Reynoso et al, 1972;Booth et al, 1973). Quite recently Rochman et al (1975) reported a more frequent elevation of CEA in their series including 37 patients with thyroid carcinoma, but the positivity was statistically significant only in cases with no previous history of childhood irradiation.…”

Carcinoembryonic antigen and prognosis after radical surgery for lung cancer: Immunocytochemical localization and serum levels

“…al., 1972;Booth et al, 1973). The upper limit of the normal range with this assay is 15 ng/ml, and the use of this test for measuring CEA in serum samples from lung-cancer patients has been reported previously Comparison of immunocytochemical anti-CEA localization with serum CEA levels is shown in Table II for the 86 patients for whom there were both preoperative and postoperative serum samples available for assay.…”