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Worried about rising CEA levels

Colorectal Cancer | Last Active: Aug 31 6:47am | Replies (91)
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@nldan

We have a friend who had colon cancer. Her treatment ended successfully in May of last year. In all her follow-ups there's been no evidence of cancer anywhere in her body. However, her CEA levels continue to rise, doubling between each follow-up visit. Doctors cannot find anything that they'd expect to cause this. She does say that her stomach just doesn't feel normal, but in various scans, they see nothing. After a team consultation, they've decided to open her stomach to see if there is something the scans cannot detect. I would guess that the stomach issue might only be nervousness or anxiety, but that's just my thought or, not doctors. Has anyone experienced or heard something like this? Even just an increasing CEA level after successful treatment? Thank you in advance for any feedback.

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Replies to "We have a friend who had colon cancer. Her treatment ended successfully in May of last..."
Colleen Young, Connect Director | @colleenyoung | Oct 10, 2019

@nldan, I can imagine that doubling CEA levels is worrisome for you and your friend. I'm glad that her care team is continuing to investigate. I did a bit of searching around because I was curious about this. As you probably know CEA testing is notorious for false positives, meaning that the test results may show high levels when they are actually not. That's why a single CEA is never enough information, they track levels over time to watch for trends.

Here's more info:
- High False-Positive Rate of Elevated CEA Seen in Patients With Resected Colorectal Cancer https://www.ascopost.com/issues/august-15-2014/high-false-positive-rate-of-elevated-cea-seen-in-patients-with-resected-colorectal-cancer/

I also found this case study, where a patient had successful treatment for colon cancer and elevated CEA levels were caused by a second cancer of the thyroid.
- High CEA levels in a case of resected colorectal cancer: delayed diagnosis of metachronous medullary thyroid cancer https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5747095/

@gaylemol, I too wonder if you were ever able to discover the reason for your rising CEA levels.
@revcindy, how are you doing? Have you returned to work?

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