Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) monitoring in the management of radiotherapeutic and chemotherapeutic patients

Abstract

We have measured serial carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) titers in 122 radiotherapy and 52 chemotherapy patients, randomly selected from the patient population of a Radiotherapeutic and a Cancer Chemotherapy Clinic, and correlated with the clinical and follow-up evaluation. Seventy-eight the radiotherapeutic patients had detectable CEA levels which represents the majority of these proven cancer patients. In this group, 57 patients (73 per cent) showed correlation between the curves of CEA response and clinical evaluation diseases activity in the radiotherapy group. Thirty-one of 52, or 60 per cent of patients of the chemotherapy group showed correlation between CEA and clinical response. These data indicate that CEA serum levels parallel, in general, clinical tumor reponse.