Junaid Mehmood Alam, Amna Hussain, Syed Riaz Mehmood, Sara Sughra Asghar, Ishrat Irfan Ali, Ishrat Sultana, Maqsood Ali Ansari.
Evaluation of Carcino-Embryonic Antigen (CEA) and Diagnostic Significance in Adult Patients Suffering from Colorectal Carcinoma (CRC) and GIT Malignancies.
Baqai J Health Sci Jan ;13(2):3-9.

Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is a classic tumor marker for CRC, and has been used to monitor CRC recurrence and as a prognostic factor for CRC patients. The CEA molecule is an onco-development human tumor marker and bears the cluster differentiation designation of CD66e. It has a molecular weight of 180 kDa. Due to considerable clinical merit of CEA for diagnosis, prognosis and treatment, a study was carried out to assess its levels in patients suspected of or diagnosed with GIT cancers, with special reference to colorectal carcinoma (CRC). A total of 106 patients, 71 (66.98%) males and 35 (33.01%) females, were included in the study with age range of 46 to 79 years. Out of 71 males, 33 (46.47%) have malignant conditions and exhibited elevated levels of CEA whereas 38 have non-malignant complications with normal or non-significant CEA concentrations. The malignant conditions in males (n = 33) are sub-grouped and were determined to be pancreatic (n = 2, 6.06%), gastric (n = 10, 30.30%), colorectal (n = 18, 54.54%) and hepatic (n = 3, 9.09%) cancers. Furthermore, in female group of 35 patients, 15 (42.85%) were diagnosed with malignant condition of pancreatic (n = 1; 6.66%), gastric (n = 5; 33.33%), colorectal (n = 7; 46.66%) and hepatic (n = 2; 13.335) cancers and exhibited elevated levels of CEA. In present study all malignant conditions, either metastasizing or not, showed significantly elevated levels of CEA. In male-malignant cancer patents’ groups, average CEA values were 102.20 40 ng/ml, 298.40 21 ng/ml, 451.65 16 ng/ml and 176.10 5 ng/ml for pancreatic, gastric, colorectal and hepatic cancers, respectively. Similarly in females elevated levels of CEA were noted in pancreatic (99 ng/ml), gastric (169.25 22 ng/ml) CRC (441.15 16 ng/ml) and hepatic (128.54 20 ng/ml). At present, serial CEA-monitoring is considered the best non-invasive technique for detecting CRC and its recurrence. It is also substantiated that intensive follow-up CEA assays facilitate the identification of treatable recurrence at an early stage.

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