Postoperative Variation of Plasma CEA Levels in Lung Cancer Patients

Pre-and posttreatment CEA levels were measured in 52 surgical and 22 nonsurgical cases of lung cancer. Of these 37 patients (50.5%) showed elevated plasma CEA levels of more than 5.0ng/ml. The positive rate of the CEA value was not related to the histological type of lung cancer, but correlated well with stage of disease. In 10 of 42 patients undergoing successful surgical resection CEA levels elevated transiently within four weeks after surgery and, except in two cases, decreased to a normal range within three months. Prognosis of the patients whose preoperative CEA levels exceeded more than 2Ong/m1 was generally poor, but one patients lived for 26 months after operation and another is alive and clinically free of disease 19 months postoperatively with persistently elevated CEA values. Therefore it seems that the use of CEA to predict prognosis in patients with lung cancer is limited.