CEA Expression Research Articles

Comparative study of CEA staining in gastric and colorectal cancer tissues

Expression of CEA was studied in tissue sections from 140 cases of gastric and 54 cases of colorectal carcinoma by the immunoperoxidase technique. In some cases of gastric cancer, the intensity of CEA staining was compared with the CEA concentration by radioimmunoassay, and the intensity of the CEA staining was related to CEA concentration. CEA was more strongly positive in colorectal carcinomas than in gastric carcinomas. The intensity of the CEA staining was stronger in differentiated gastric and colorectal carcinomas than in anaplastic ones. No relationship was seen between the expression of CEA and the extent of disease in gastric or colorectal carcinoma. The CEA expression was related to the location of tumors in colorectal carcinomas, but not in gastric carcinomas.

Is heterogeneous expression of HLA-dr antigens and CEA along with DNA-profile variations evidence of phenotypic instability and clonal proliferation in human large bowel carcinomas?

Epithelial expression of HLA-DR determinants and CEA was studied by immunofluorescence in tissue sections from 33 large bowel carcinomas of different histological grade and clinico-pathological stage; flow cytometric DNA measurements were performed in 31 of the tumours. Well-differentiated carcinomas showed a strikingly patchy staining, particularly for HLA-DR and all except one had a near-diploid DNA content. The latter feature might reflect cancer development at an early stage where no distinctly aneuploid DNA clone had as yet become a predominant subline. With decreasing degree of differentiation, the epithelial antigen expression became more homogeneous for individual tumours and the proportion of distinctly aneuploid DNA profiles increased. In the poorly differentiated group of carcinomas, epithelial staining was quite uniform, both for HLA-DR determinants and for CEA, and those tumours studied for DNA content were of the aneuploid variety. These observations are in agreement with the clonal proliferation theory of tumour development proposed by Nowell in 1976.

Sensitive three-parameter flow-cytometric detection of abnormal cells in human cervical cancers: a pilot study.

The cell volume, the DNA, and the carcino-embryonic (CEA) or epithelial-membrane (EMA) antigen of formaldehyde-fixed human cervical cells from 21 malignant cervix tumors and 11 normal patients were measured simultaneously with a Fluvo-Metricell flow cytometer. The simultaneous cell volume and DNA measurement provided the distinction of morphologically intact cells from cell debris, the determination of the cell cycle phase combined with the detection of aneuploid cells, and the distinct of inflammatory cells from parenchymal and tumor cells. Malignant samples were recognized because they contained more than 0.5% CEA positive cells which were of intermediate size. CEA and EMA expression in the malignant samples was not linked. The false positive rate in a total of 32 samples was 6.3% when the sum of CEA and EMA positive cells of each cell sample was calculated. No false negative malignant sample was observed.