Rising CEA

My husband Stage IIIc Sigmoid colon 10/04 with chemo ending 05/05. In July his CEA was 1.2, Sept. 2.4, Oct. 2.7, Dec. 3.6, Jan. 5.5.

They did a CT scan in Dec. and it showed some reactive inguinal nodes, and "fat injection" around the prostate/seminal vesicles. In Jan. they did a PET/CT and it showed a mass in the presacral space. They went back to the Dec. scan and found the mass although it was a little smaller then.

My husband is having surgery tomorrow. They will start out with an exploratory laparoscopy and then open him up if they do not find anything else. They really don't know what they will be doing until they do the laparoscopy and see exactly where it is. Anything below where he was put back together previously is "no man's land" according to the surgeon.

Has he just had the 2 CEA's recently? My husband was having them every 6 weeks since September. Is he a smoker? My husband's onc. initial concern was that it had doubled from July to Sept. even though it was still normal.

MA

Ali, seems to me a 0.2 increase in CEA is perhaps statistically meaningless? I would think you could get similar variability from one day to the next. Good luck with your husband's surgery. Keep us posted.

alihamilton said:

Thanks for the quick response. I do hope your husband's surgery goes well.

My husband's CEA has gone up much more slowly. In July 2004, a year after surgery, it was 3.1, then three months later it was the same, then another 3 months later it was 2.9.and then 2.6. Six months later it had gone up to 3.3 and now, three months later, it is 3.5. We will speak to his oncologist next week but I understand that if there is nothing on the CT scan, there is not much they can do. No, he is not a smoker.

All the best to you and your husband. Do keep us posted on the findings and what treatment they are recommending.

Ali

I know it is so easy to tell someone not to worry, but easy for them to say. My husband's onc. did tell us on the 2.4 to 2.7 rise that a rise that small could be in the handling of the sample. Has his CEA ever gone below the 3.0 range. My husband's was 4.3 at diagnosis and dropped to 1.7 about 2 weeks after surgery. The way they explained is the pre-surgery level kinda gives them an idea as to what to look at and what his body might do as far as CEA.

Just keep a watch as we were told that one number did not mean that much, it was a slow, steady rise they would be watching for. Slow, steady for local recurrence, and numbers closer to 10 or more for liver.

MA