Does chemo itself ever raise CEA?

k1

Does chemo treatment itself ever cause CEA to rise?

K1

karen40

I found this:
Hi k1,
I hope this helps.

What conditions can cause an elevated CEA?

Both benign and malignant (harmless and cancerous) conditions can increase the CEA level. The most frequent cancer which causes an increased CEA is cancer of the colon and rectum. Others include cancers of the pancreas, stomach, breast, lung, and certain types of thyroid and ovarian cancer. Benign conditions which can elevate CEA include smoking, infections, inflammatory bowel disease, pancreatitis, cirrhosis of the liver, and some benign tumors in the same organs in which an elevated CEA indicates cancer. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy can cause a temporary rise in CEA due to the death of tumor cells and release of CEA into the blood stream. Benign disease does not usually cause an increase above 10 ng/ml.

http://www.medicinenet.com/carcinoembryonic_antigen/article.htm

Karen

annalexandria

You might want to
take a look at this:

http://fightcolorectalcancer.org/research_news/2009/11/cea_flares_during_chemo_dont_mean_cancer_progression

An interesting study out of England that may give some hope.

k1

annalexandria said:

You might want to
take a look at this:

http://fightcolorectalcancer.org/research_news/2009/11/cea_flares_during_chemo_dont_mean_cancer_progression

An interesting study out of England that may give some hope.

thanks
Thanks to Karen and Anna for the articles. I am just finished with treatment 5 of 12 on Xeloda and oxaliplatin and my CEA is of the steadily rising sort so far. The one article said a spike and then a drop was better than steadily rising. Guess I can hope that it will be lower next time, but it is worrying me.

K1