How high can cea levels go?

Hi, Does anyone know if Y-90 can increase your CEA count? Thanks

NewHere said:

Welcome ATAPLIN

Welcome to the board, sorry you are here.

This thread is older and some posters, unfortunately, are no longer here.  Your story and attitude is great and you should start a new thread to introduce yourself and share the story.  I have been dealing with this for two years, including mets to lung, two surgeries and 6 months of chemo.  I can no longer take the Oxi part of the mix due to reaction, but the chemo otherwise kept the met down.  As I told my wife, if I had to do the chemo thing I can deal with it until something else comes along.  Right now the indication are the other suspect spots since the beginning may not be mets since only one has grown (and taken out) since I stopped chemo 18 months ago.  

But anyway, welcome again.  

Hello Adrian,

Thank you for your story. It gives me hope in Oxi. I do have colorectal cancer , diagnosed in 2012, allways on chemo, mets in lungs and liver. CEA 156. Next week second treatment with Oxi and 5FU.

Get well,

Elena

kyolcu said:

CEA level

my CEA was 17000(seventeen thousand) when I was diagnosed first time in february  2016. my current CEA is 119, and treatment is going very well.

Hello CEA level,

Please tell me which chemotherapy you received, so did your CEA fall to 119?

Thank you!

Sorry for duplicative message. I used 3 chemotherapy Avastin, 5FU, and Irinotecan Initially. Then I was in maintenance chemo only with Avastin and 5FU for about a year. I am currently in triple chemo.

misert said:

kyolcu, thank you very much!

kyolcu, thank you very much!

I'd just like to ask you one more.

Can you write me a list of tumor marker reduction.

For example,

After 3 cycles the tumor marker value was:

After 6 cycles the tumor marker value was:

....

....

and so on, for all the values when checking the values of tumor markers

 

Also, did your doctors do the surgery where you have metastases?

 

Thank you again!

I don't remember how many cycles but I can give you the dates so you may have an idea. I am taking chemo every two weeks.

3/10/16:17060

3/23/16

11379

4/2/16:3384

5/4/16:2012

6/1/16:530

6/17/16:318

7/28/16:75

8/3/16:45

then started to increase lettle bit. No surgery done.

misert said:

Thank you!

Thank you!

I believe you will succeed in your struggle with this disease.

I want you to recover as soon as possible!

thank you for good comments, I do wish same thing for everyone who is struggling with disease. My tumors are still there but I try to be very positive all the time, and proud of things accomplished so far.

NewHere said:

Welcome ATAPLIN

Welcome to the board, sorry you are here.

This thread is older and some posters, unfortunately, are no longer here.  Your story and attitude is great and you should start a new thread to introduce yourself and share the story.  I have been dealing with this for two years, including mets to lung, two surgeries and 6 months of chemo.  I can no longer take the Oxi part of the mix due to reaction, but the chemo otherwise kept the met down.  As I told my wife, if I had to do the chemo thing I can deal with it until something else comes along.  Right now the indication are the other suspect spots since the beginning may not be mets since only one has grown (and taken out) since I stopped chemo 18 months ago.  

But anyway, welcome again.  

I am at the beginning of this journey.  Path reports due 2 Oct 2017.  Just getting my feet wet and trying to learn all I can.

msslvz said:

cea

Your CEA is 5.6 and you are you are currently cancer free?  My level is also 5.6 and I am just now going through diagnosis.  Will get pathology report Wednesday 2 OCT 2017.

Just saw your reply to my post.  At the time I was until I got the latest CEA number.  It jumped to 9.7 and then 11 after a retest.  Long story short, CT and PET were ordered which yielded nothing.  Colonoscopy found a cancerous polyp in my Appendix which was removed via right hemicolectomy.  CEA since surgery was back down to 5.4 and 5.2.  Then in March during another checkup spiked up to 15.6 and then 16.7 for the retest.  Again a bunch of tests were done: CT with contrast, PET, small bowel capsule endoscopy, MRI with contrast, endoscopy, and colonoscopy.  All found no cancer.  A couple of CEA tests were done which yielded 14.2 and 11.9.  Just had a checkup a few weeks ago and the CEA is back up to 15.2.  Oncologist feels there's nothing to be concerned.  So next checkup is in March.  He also feels the spike in my CEA last year when the cancerous polyp was found was not due to the polyp itself.  He also feels things are fine since the recent CEA tests are within expected variations.  He said if I had active cancer, it wouldn't drop like it did.

Oh and my initial diagnosis was Stage 3B Colon Cancer.  The cancerous polyp found last year was Stage 0 Appendicial Cancer.

faruccis said:

CEA levels

Thank you kyolcu for your input. This is my first attempt on this site. I have stomach cancer diagnosed in July 2017. i am not in chemo as i feel ok. my CEA level was 12 then,; but today i was told it jumped to 2376, and cancer is spreading more than before. but i still feel ok.scar at my belly botton where laproscopy was done in August 2017 is hard and today i was told its cancer. i feel a bump there and its sensitive to touch. i am advised to do chemo now to slow cancer progress; but side effects of chemo scare me especially i have no pressing symptoms "yet". Any input is apprcated.

 

A good many of us have been on chemo before, or are on chemo for the second time or will be on chemo for the second time soon. I'm in the latter camp. Yes, side-effects can be mild to awful. But the alternative can be a lot worse. I was actually eager to start chemo and radiation because I could feel the tumor causing more and more pain and likely causing death unless it was arrested.  Many of us already had our tumors removed and are doing mop-up chemo now - that is cleaning up stray molecules that may or may not be around. It's not a decision made lightly but it seems to me that most of us make it.

We're mostly about colorectal cancer here and there should be a stomach cancer board (I haven't looked) where the posters there would be likely far more knowledgeable about things like staging, spread, prognoisis and treatment. BTW, my CEAs were 2.7 at diagnosis, 1.8 after three weeks of chemo and radiation and 1.7 after six weeks of chemo and radiation, and then 0.6 a month after surgical removal of the tumor. I start chemo up again on December 20 knowing full well what the side-effects are and knowing that most or all of the cancer is out of my body. The mop-up chemo is just to improve the odds should there still be some in me.

This is a really old post and should be posted on new thread.  Most people won't comment on this though.  However, CEA doesn't always give good indicators and some doctors don't use it because it can be unreliable.  Mine was never accurate so not a good indicator.  When it is, any fluctuation can be a sign of progression in tumor activity.  Don't rely on CEA numbers solely though as many factors can contribute to it.

Kim