Preoperative Carcinoembryoinic Antigen Level and Prognosis in Colorectal Cancer

Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels were estimated in 117 patients before resection of colorectal cancer. Twenty–six per cent of patients had normal CEA values. CEA values rose progressively with tumour stages, and were higher in patients with liver metastases compared with patients with only lymph–node spread. No significant difference in survival, independent of stage of spread, was found between patients with preoperative levels of antigen greater or less than 5 ng/mL of plasma. Similarly, there was no significant difference between the survival of patients with stage B or stage C tumours regardless of whether their levels of the antigen were greater or less than 10 ng/mL of plasma. A single preoperative CEA estimation does not add to the prognostic information available from careful assessment of the stage of tumour spread.