Colorectal cancer patients whose CEA blood tests rise at the beginning of chemotherapy and then fall (CEA flare) do better than patients with a consistently rising CEA. CEA flares don’t necessarily predict worsening cancer.
Compared to patients with consistently rising carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), patients who had a CEA flare had more tumor shrinkage, longer time before their cancer got worse, and longer survival time. Read the rest of this entry »
Patients with very early stage colon cancer benefit as much from regular followup testing after surgery as later stage patients do.
While overall patients with stage I or IIA colon cancer (early stage) have a lower risk of cancer returning than patients with stage IIB or III (later stage), careful surveillance after surgery is as effective in finding and treating cancer in both groups.
About one in three patients in both the early and late stage who had a recurrence detected during surveillance were able to have surgery with the goal of curing their cancer. Read the rest of this entry »
