RE: New to all this

[Guest guest]

Carcinogenic Embryonic Antigen. It is a tumor marker but not specific to just thyroid cancer. It is used most frequently as a colon cancer marker.

Kim in Aubrey

From: Texas_Thyroid_Groups [mailto:Texas_Thyroid_Groups ] On Behalf Of Jan Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2006 12:12 AMTo: Texas_Thyroid_Groups Subject: Re: New to all this

What is CEA?Sharon <sabuchanan1952hotmail> wrote: Hi Everyone!!! My name is Sharon and I'm from Houston and pretty new to anything dealing with the thyroid. I was diagnosed in January with Medullary Thyroid Cancer. In March I had a total thyroidectomy and right neck disection at MD . After the surgery I was put on 100mcg of Synthroid.I had my first blood work done since the surgery to test my two tumor markers, Calcitonin and CEA. My Calcitonin was 2 (supposedly anything under 4 is fine)and my CEA was 1.9 (anything below 3 is normal). It looks like the cancer was encapsillated in my thyroid and did not spread which is fantastic!!!Lately, I've been having problems sleeping, tired all the time, panic attacks, hot and sweaty, itchy skin, foggy headed, shortness of breath, palpatations, etc... I'm sure it has to do with my thyroid medication and not the surgery. I called my Endo last week to let him know how I felt. He sent me to get some blood work done. All he tested was the TSH and Free T4. My TSH is .15 and FT4 is 1.6. The nurse called with the results and said that he wanted to lower my synthroid because of the palpitations. I just want to feel the best I can and am looking for as much info as possible that will help me accomplish this. Sharon

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[Guest guest]

Can it be used to diagnose colon cancer or is it just used to detect recurrences?Kim Hanson wrote: Carcinogenic Embryonic Antigen. It is a tumor marker but not specific to just thyroid cancer. It is used most frequently as a colon cancer marker. Kim in Aubrey From: Texas_Thyroid_Groups [mailto:Texas_Thyroid_Groups ] On Behalf Of Jan Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2006 12:12 AMTo: Texas_Thyroid_Groups Subject: Re: New to all this What is CEA?Sharon <sabuchanan1952hotmail> wrote: Hi Everyone!!! My name is Sharon and I'm from Houston and pretty new to anything dealing with the thyroid. I was diagnosed in January with Medullary Thyroid Cancer. In March I had a total thyroidectomy and right neck disection at MD . After the surgery I was put on 100mcg of Synthroid.I had my first blood work

done since the surgery to test my two tumor markers, Calcitonin and CEA. My Calcitonin was 2 (supposedly anything under 4 is fine)and my CEA was 1.9 (anything below 3 is normal). It looks like the cancer was encapsillated in my thyroid and did not spread which is fantastic!!!Lately, I've been having problems sleeping, tired all the time, panic attacks, hot and sweaty, itchy skin, foggy headed, shortness of breath, palpatations, etc... I'm sure it has to do with my thyroid medication and not the surgery. I called my Endo last week to let him know how I felt. He sent me to get some blood work done. All he tested was the TSH and Free T4. My TSH is .15 and FT4 is 1.6. The nurse called with the results and said that he wanted to lower my synthroid because of the palpitations. I just want to feel the best I can and am looking for as much info as possible that will help me accomplish this.

Sharon Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great rates starting at 1¢/min. __________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

It's used more to detect recurrences...not a good diagnostic tool at all.

Usually it is run very close to the diagnosis to get a "baseline" for the patient. Unfortunately the test can also be elevated for benign reasons as well. I found this link that I thought was pretty informative.

http://www.bccancer.bc.ca/HPI/CancerManagementGuidelines/TumourMarkers/CEA.htm

The previous poster was correct that most labs use < 3.0 as their normal. This website states 0-4.

Kim

From: Texas_Thyroid_Groups [mailto:Texas_Thyroid_Groups ] On Behalf Of Jan Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2006 3:49 PMTo: Texas_Thyroid_Groups Subject: RE: New to all this

Can it be used to diagnose colon cancer or is it just used to detect recurrences?Kim Hanson <khanson93065> wrote:

Carcinogenic Embryonic Antigen. It is a tumor marker but not specific to just thyroid cancer. It is used most frequently as a colon cancer marker.

Kim in Aubrey

From: Texas_Thyroid_Groups [mailto:Texas_Thyroid_Groups ] On Behalf Of Jan Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2006 12:12 AMTo: Texas_Thyroid_Groups Subject: Re: New to all this

What is CEA?Sharon <sabuchanan1952hotmail> wrote: Hi Everyone!!! My name is Sharon and I'm from Houston and pretty new to anything dealing with the thyroid. I was diagnosed in January with Medullary Thyroid Cancer. In March I had a total thyroidectomy and right neck disection at MD . After the surgery I was put on 100mcg of Synthroid.I had my first blood work done since the surgery to test my two tumor markers, Calcitonin and CEA. My Calcitonin was 2 (supposedly anything under 4 is fine)and my CEA was 1.9 (anything below 3 is normal). It looks like the cancer was encapsillated in my thyroid and did not spread which is fantastic!!!Lately, I've been having problems sleeping, tired all the time, panic attacks, hot and sweaty, itchy skin, foggy headed, shortness of breath, palpatations, etc... I'm sure it has to do with my thyroid medication and not the surgery. I called my Endo last week to let him know how I felt. He sent me to get some blood work done. All he tested was the TSH and Free T4. My TSH is .15 and FT4 is 1.6. The nurse called with the results and said that he wanted to lower my synthroid because of the palpitations. I just want to feel the best I can and am looking for as much info as possible that will help me accomplish this. Sharon

Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great rates starting at 1¢/min.

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