Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA)/CA-15-3 Blood Tests

nowaldron

Hi Everyone,

I hope you are all feeling fine on this last day of February. I was just wondering how often those of us with HER2+ MBC have the biomarker blood tests done. I am currently stable and still in my first line of treatment Herception/Perjeta/Femara after completing chemo/radiation when I was first diagnosed in Feb 2016 (mets to bone and liver). 

I haven't had the biomarker tests done in over a year. My most recent scans (this week) came back with something indeterminate on my liver (I have healed metastases there) and a cluster of nodes in my right lower lung (may be inflammation). I was kind of surprised that my onc didn't order the two tumor market tests. I, of course, didn't think to ask her when I was at the hospital.

Any thoughts? Thanks so much. 

Nancy

pajim

Hi Nancy, the tumor marker tests don't work for everyone. And they don't work all the time. There may be some docs who just don't believe in them for that reason.

In fact, one should never change treatment based on TMs. Always need a scan.

That said, mine get tested whenever I see the doc. That was once every three months when I was first on Letrozole. Then every couple of months when we added Faslodex. Nowadays it's every three weeks. My CEA has always been normal. But the CA27-29 (or ca15-3 is what they call it at me center) has always been predictive. When it goes up scans look worse. When it goes down scans look better. So far.

You've had the gold standard test. Sounds like it came back indeterminate, but certainly not worse (Yay!!!). You should probably ask your MO her philosophy around this. Certainly worth knowing.

Nkb

I have had mine done every month since the Mets diagnosis and although they bounce around A LOT when they trended up 2-3 months in a row it was predictive of progression. The progression was detected by PET scan after seeing them trend up. Some people have quite normal TMs even with progression- so it is really a matter of seeing if your numbers are helpful or not