As follow-up studies of such families become available, detection of the "CEA family syndrome" may prove to be a useful means of locating individuals with inherited premalignant or malignant conditions and may provide a stimulus for additional clinical examination of asymptomatic individuals considered at risk for developing malignancies.
There was a tendency toward an increased incidence of cancer in families with infants who had elevated CEA levels and a reverse trend was noted with respect to diabetes; however, these associations were not statistically significant.
Cancer patients and relatives at high genetic risk had significantly greater mean square root CEA than relatives at low genetic risk, and, surprisingly, unrelated spouses had mean levels of square root CEA which were similar to that in the corresponding cancer risk class of their direct-line mates.
These data show that SCLC expresses neuroendocrine markers and CEA; CK is the most sensitive marker, and DDC and CEA are the most specific markers for SCLC in vitro; individual marker levels correlate with each other and the in vitro malignancy of SCLC; and SCLC cell lines have relatively uniform chromosomal characteristics.
These results provide a basis for the improved cancer diagnosis by using our CEA assay system utilizing a Group F MAb, and indicate the potential clinical utility of the Group F MAbs.
A CEA-specific nested reverse transcriptase (RT) polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay was developed and optimized using limiting dilutions of a CEA-positive cancer cell line mixed with normal bone marrow cell specimens.
CEA mRNA expression in the non-carcinomatous parenchymal tissue and cancer tissue was evaluated by in situ hybridisation using CEA specific riboprobe and was semiquantitated by counting the number of silver grains per cell.
Clinicopathologic variables, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), nuclear DNA ploidy, and proliferating cell nuclear antigen labeling index (PCNA LI) have been studied for their effect on patients with various types of cancer.
To extend investigations to the transformed myogenic counterpart and examine CEA effects on differentiation and malignancy outside the colon system, we have transfected the human CEA gene in human rhabdomyosarcoma cells.
Both the cancer lesions and six AAH (greater than 3 mm in diameter) were examined with regard to immunoreactivity of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and p53 gene product, microsatellite instability (MI) and loss of heterozygosity (LOH) on chromosome 9q and 17q by polymerase chain reaction (PCR).
Therefore, we suggest that the use of either CEA promoter region isolated from CRC or normal mucosa is equally effective to induce strong, CEA-producing cancer-selective expression of a therapeutic gene.
In this study, starting with the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of patients with metastatic malignancies expressing CEA, autologous DCs were generated in vitro in serum-free media supplemented with GM-CSF and IL-4.
Chimeric immunoglobulin-T cell receptors (IgTCR) with a specificity for carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) were created to evaluate the optimal IgTCR structure for cancer therapy.
In the 57 patients with stage I cancer whose blood samples were previously assayed for carcinoembryonic antigen mRNA, patients with persistently positive test results for carcinoembryonic antigen mRNA before and during operation had a significantly shorter survival when compared with those patients whose test results were persistently positive.
Factors that were determined to merit inclusion in category I were as follows: the local extent of tumor assessed pathologically (the pT category of the TNM staging system of the American Joint Committee on Cancer and the Union Internationale Contre le Cancer [AJCC/UICC]); regional lymph node metastasis (the pN category of the TNM staging system); blood or lymphatic vessel invasion; residual tumor following surgery with curative intent (the R classification of the AJCC/UICC staging system), especially as it relates to positive surgical margins; and preoperative elevation of carcinoembryonic antigen elevation (a factor established by laboratory medicine methods rather than anatomic pathology).
These results strongly suggest that the EBV-based plasmid vector/cationic polymer system (EBV/polyplex) equipped with the CEA promoter provides an efficient nonviral method for the targeted gene therapy of CEA-producing malignancies.
Since the incidence of CEA-mRNA positivity is high in the lymph nodes of esophageal cancer patients except for those with early cancer, these patients should be treated with adjuvant therapy.