Carcinoembrionic antigen(CEA) was identified in cancer of the colon by Gold and Freedman in 1965, and Thomson et al in 1969 outlined a radioimmunoassay for CEA levels in serum. After then, it was applied for screening colon cancer, breast cancer
etc.
But as the sensitivity and specifisity of CEA for breast cancer were low, it was said that the clinical usefulness of CFA for detection of breast cancer or tumor recurrence was not appropriate. So, for the purpose of the evaluation of the
clinical
usefulness of CEA in breast cancer. we reviewed preoperative CEA level in 108 breast cancer patients, who were treated at Department of General Surgery, Soon Chun Hyang University, during 10 years from Jan. 1981 to Jun. 1991.
@ES The results were as follows.
@EN 1). The positivity of preoperative serum CEA level above 2.5 ng/ml was 27.8%.
2) The preoperative CEA level was independent on the age of patients, the location of the mass, the size of the mass, the stage and metastasis of axillary lymph node(P>0.05).
3) There was no relation between the cell-mediated immunity and the preoperative CEA level in breast cancer(P>0.05).
4) There were 26 recurrence out of 108(24.1%) in patients, and among these patients, the positivity of the serum CEA level above 2.5 ng/ml was 12 out of 26(46.2%)(P<0.05).
With above mentioned results, we suggest that preoperative serum CEA level is not associated with the size of tumor, axiilary lymph node involvement, the age and the cell-mediated immunity of breast cancer. But serum CEA level is strongly
associated
with the recurrence of breast cancer. so we recommend postoperative serial determination of serum CEA for early detection of the recurrence of breast cancer.
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