Diagnostic Significance of Serum CEA and CA19-9 Levels in Colorectal Cancers

Abstract

We investigated the clinical significance of measuring serum CEA and CA19-9 levels for the early diagnosis of colorectal cancer in 157 cases. In the present study, the preoperative positive rate of serum CEA and CA19-9 levels in patients with curatively resected primary cancer was only 14.5% (11/76), 12.1% (4/33) of Dukes A, B, and 22.0% (11/50), 27.6% (8/29) of Dukes C, respectively, however, we found that serum CEA or CA19-9 levels were positive in 82.4% (14 cases) of 17 recurrent colorectal cancers after curative resection and that the elevation of these tumor markers was the first diagnostic method of recurrence in 38.1% of 21 cases. Thus, we conclude that the measurement of serum CEA and CA19-9 levels is not useful for the diagnosis of primary colorectal cancers, but is very useful for the early detection of recurrent colorectal cancers.