dianetavegia wrote:Mine did and it was a false positive.
A year ago my CEA was around 2.9 or 3.1. It has never been lower than 2.4 in 9 years. Six months later it was 5.8. I'd read that hypothyroid can cause false positives and since my scans were clear, I asked for blood work and sure enough, my TSH showed I was hypothyroid. I went on medication and my CEA five months later had dropped MORE than 50%, back to a low norm for me. I also had a large fluid filled cyst on my thyroid (benign) drained.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6893991
There are MANY articles on this subject.
I had my CEA go to 4.4 with a severe sinus infection and another time, walking pneumonia. Your CEA can change .5 from morning to evening. AGE causes a higher CEA than is found in a young person, too.
Just keep a check on it and as long as his scans are clear, try to not worry too much.
Diane
ASTEPHENS33 wrote:I am not sure why the Cologaurd test is not used in these situations. Cologuard is used for general colon screening. You send in your poop and it measures the DNA to say if there is cancer in your system. For high risk people, its not a good way to screen, as once cancer is detected its not good.
Strong wrote:My (limited) understanding of Cologuard is that it's a good test for a primary tumor in the colon or rectum but it won't indicate post-treatment metastisis since the sample is taken from cells within the G.I. tract.
Isn't the CEA test strictly for mets? My CEA was 1.1 with my primary rectal tumor intact. Since finishing treatment it's been between 0.6 and 0.9. Since it was within normal limits even when my stage 3 tumor was present, I've always assumed it wasn't an effective test for anything below stage 4.
John
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