cea jump

kutatunaz
kutatunaz Member Posts: 8 Member
edited March 2022 in Colorectal Cancer #1

I was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer with 15 metastases in my liver. The oncologist didn't give me much of a chance. During the course of my chemotherapy, my mets disappeared from mri scans and my cea continued to drop 24.0>21.6>11.1>10.1>8.5>5.7>2.7>1.8. It appeared my cancer was in remission though the oncologist never used that term. Now two months after my last check up, my cea jumped from 1.8 back up to 3.3. Does that signal a recurrence?

Comments

  • MandiePandie
    MandiePandie Member Posts: 109 Member
    #2

    They dont typically use the term remission for solid tumor cancers, only for blood cancers I believe. No evidence of disease (NED) is the equivalent so its very possible that after your mets disappeared from imaging, you were NED.

    A rising CEA could mean a recurrence, it seems that since your CEA was elevated before that its a indicative marker for you, but a jump like that could also be just a fluctuation due to a number of reasons. Typically a lab value like CEA is better evaluated as a series to see trends rather than just a single or few values.

    I hope you havent had a recurrence but ultimately its probably a good question to ask you oncologist so you can formulate a plan.

  • SnapDragon2
    SnapDragon2 Member Posts: 720 Member
    #3

    Are you scheduled for a PET/CT scan?

    Are you going to have other cancer marker blood labs for comparing to CEA?

    EX: GGT, ca19-9, LDH 1-5, ect

  • kutatunaz
    kutatunaz Member Posts: 8 Member
    #4
    https://csn.cancer.org/discussion/comment/1695336#Comment_1695336

    I had a MRI in January. The lesions were very small and ill defined. My oncologist thought they were just scar tissue. I don't have a lot of faith in PET scans. I had one last spring and it only found one metastasis when the MRI scan identified 15. I don't know about any blood labs. My next appointment with the oncologist is in May.

  • Trubrit
    Trubrit Member Posts: 5,804 Member
    #5

    CEA can be unpredictable.

    Sometimes it can be sensitive, and something other than Cancer can set it off.

    When my CEA started to rise, I had a repeat CEA done the following week - which was even higher, so we knew something was amis.

    I hope your next step is a repeat CEA, before heading into the more expensive tests.

    Here's hoping it will drop back down. Keep us posted.

    Tru

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