Glori
@elvandi
@elvandi
Posts: 75
Joined: Mar 10, 2014
Colleen Young, Connect Director
@colleenyoung
@colleenyoung
Posts: 6918
Joined: Jul 23, 2014
Glori, Any abnormal test will set off alarm bells and anxiety. I'm sure that is how you're feeling with the higher than normal levels of cancer antigen 15-3 (CA15-3) in your recent blood test. But remember, it's just an indicator, signalling that further testing is necessary to find out IF anything is wrong. When do you see your oncologist to discuss the results and get further testing?
Colleen Young, Connect Director
@colleenyoung
@colleenyoung
Posts: 6918
Joined: Jul 23, 2014
@caroline41 Just saw your post and read it because I also take Anastrozole daily. Can't address blood test question – just wanted to most sincerely wish you well.
Welcome to Connect, @caroline41. You may be interested in joining this discussion on anastrozole:
– Concerned about the side effects of anastrozole https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/i-completed-all-treatments-for-breast-cancer-but-now-i-am-supposed/
Just thought I’d throw this out there-my oncologist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock does not test routinely for cancer markers as he says the test is unreliable and has many false positives and false negatives. He has been over 30 years practicing, so he has a lot of experience to back his opinion. Hopefully your elevated levels are an example of this. Best wishes.
Liked by Colleen Young, Connect Director, miland
kat9606
@kat9606
@kat9606
Posts: 33
Joined: Apr 11, 2017
@tessfair1 Just thought I’d throw this out there-my oncologist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock does not test routinely for cancer markers as he says the test is unreliable and has many false positives and false negatives. He has been over 30 years practicing, so he has a lot of experience to back his opinion. Hopefully your elevated levels are an example of this. Best wishes.
FYI- My oncologist with Mayo Clinic AZ doesn’t trust the tumor marker tests either, says too unreliable.
oilermama
@oilermama
@oilermama
Posts: 19
Joined: Jun 14, 2018
My oncologist doesn't put a lot of stock in tumor markers either. BUT she does order them every month. So I guess we just continue to keep an eye on them. She also is not a big fan of scans–mostly seems to favor how I feel. The only thing that makes me feel better about that is those are the same things that the specialist at Michigan says…
Liked by Colleen Young, Connect Director
@caroline41
Just saw your post and read it because I also take Anastrozole daily. Can't address blood test question – just wanted to most sincerely wish you well.