Carcinoembryonic antigen is released by tumor cell of various origins, as well as by inflammatory and hypertrophic lesions, and its presence has been demonstrated by radioimmunoassay of plasma or immunohistologic reaction of the tumor tissue. Uterine cervical cancer which is the most common malignant tumor among Korean women is also reported that it shows elevated plasma CEA level in some cases and its cellular CEA can be demonstrated by immunoenzyme histologic method.
However, there are only few report on pattern of distribution of CEA in each histologic type or age group.
The author collected 79 cases of alcohol fixed, paraffin embedded uterine cervical cancer specimens and performed immunoenzyme histological stain using horseradish peroxidase conjugated rabbit antihuman CEA antibody and analyzed their reaction pattern by histologic types; and age groups.
The results obtained are as following
1. Among 79 cases of uterine cervical carcinoma, 64 cases(81.0%) revealed positive reaction to anti-CEA.
2. Uterine cervical carcinoma showing positive reaction to anti-CEA could be classifed into, two patterns, diffuse and focal, with their ratio of 2 to 1.
3. Incidence of positive reaction to anti-CEA in 46 cases of keratinizing squamous cell carcinoma and 30 cases of non keratinizing squamous cell carcinoma were 78.3% and 83.4%, respectively and their ratio of diffuse to focal pattern was 2 to 1.
4. Each one case of undifferentiated cercinoma, adenocarcinoma and adenosquamous carcinoma of uterine cervix revealed positive reaction in diffuse pattern.
5. There was no difference in incidence of positive reaction by age group between age of 31 to 70.
6. The cases showing diffuse positive reaction were noted between age of 31 to 80 and focal positive reaction were noted between age of 21 to 60.
Above results show that about 80% of uterine cervical carcinomas of occuring in Korean women are CEA positive in cellular level, bearing diffuse or focal positive reaction, and reveal no significant difference in positivity or reaction pattern by histologic type of the tumor or age group of patients.
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