Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma and Carcinoembryonic Antigen Levels

Excerpt

To the editor: Carcinoembryonic antigen is a tumor marker associated with various malignant tumors (digestive tract, lung, breast, and bladder) and may be elevated in the circulation of patients with benign conditions (1). Although carcinoembryonic antigen levels may not be quantitatively related to host tumor cell burden, they are more frequently elevated in patients with advanced or disseminated disease than in patients with early or only primary malignancies (2). Sequential carcinoembryonic antigen measurements have been used successfully for monitoring of metastatic breast and gastrointestinal cancer and in the detection of recurrent tumors of similar etiology (3, 4).

Twenty-five patients with