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Signatera Numbers are sky high and I'm terrified

Colorectal Cancer | Last Active: Oct 15 5:37pm | Replies (15)

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@mvbny

Hi Kat,

I just got a jump in my Signatera from 2 to 22, and like you am stage 4 but should have had only microscopic disease left when the last measurement was taken. Even when I had all my tumors and nodes it wasn't anywhere close to that high

Like one of your repliers, I was also told dead cells could be the reason or an unrelated inflammation I had. The number made no sense - I'm told the tests are more accurate when they're negative.

So glad to see I wasn't alone. Thank you for posting. I hope your numbers have gone down on subsequent tests?

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Replies to "Hi Kat, I just got a jump in my Signatera from 2 to 22, and like..."

Please everyone! Do not look at the specific signatura results (mtm/mL) or mean tumor molecules per mL of sample. They are meaningless and the only thing you should be looking for is whether you are negative or positive at any point in your trend or what the trend is. Please discuss this with your oncologist and remember Natera offers are free half hour consultation with every patient who's getting these results. I am a retired professional who spent many years in developing and validating bioanalytical assays of this type so I have some basis for an opinion. That being said I just returned from Mayo Clinic with some very surprising results. So one year after I had surgery for colon cancer, was stage 3 with two of 31 lymph nodes involved, I had negative CT DNA tests at post-op, and then three additional negative tests through June of this year. Today when I went in for my one year CT scan and colonoscopy and blood work, we found what may be metastasis to the liver, 2.0 x 1.6 cm. Very surprising and counter intuitive to the four consecutive and serial negative Signatera results. So after confirmation I may very well be stage four with metastasis to the liver. Just goes to show you that spending too much time on signatera is counterproductive. In my case the 10% false negative rate for this test may have given me false assurance.