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What Causes High CEA Levels When Suffering From Colon Cancer?

Posted on Thu, 17 Jul 2014

Question: I was diagnosis with colon cancer (sigmoid tumor) in Oct 2012. I under went a regiment of chemo and radiation treatments after surgery. I completed all my treatments in July 2013. Since then I have had my CEA levels checked every 3 months, the levels were .5. I had a CEA blood test this past Monday, and just received the results. They were a 1.4. I know that is considered within normal range, but it does concern me. Are there several factors which can cause a rise in your CEA levels besides a reoccurrence of cancer?

Answered by Dr. Pavan Kumar Gupta (3 hours later)

Brief answer...various other cancers and non cancer causes can raise CEA levels in a person.
Detailed answer....
Hello,
Thanks for the query.
High CEA levels can occur in various other cancers like pancreas cancer,gastric cancer,breast cancer etc and various other non cancerous situations and causes like....
Heavy smoking
Hypothyroidism
Liver and gall bladder inflammations
Lung infections
Gastric ulcer
Pancreatitis
Ulcerative colitis etc.
I hope it helps,however you may revert to me for any further query.
Best of luck
Thanks

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar