Detection of Carcinoembryonic Antigen mRNA in the Mesenteric Vein of Patients with Resectable Colorectal Cancer

Abstract

The detection of tumor cells in the drainage venous blood of patients with colorectal cancer was made feasible by demonstrating carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) mRNA in the mononuclear cell component of the blood, using a nested reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. CEA mRNA was detected in the drainage venous blood from 11 (42%) of 26 patients, and the rate of detection increased according to the grade of vessel invasion. CEA mRNA was detected in all patients with synchronous liver metastases, even though there was no significant correlation between the presence of CEA mRNA in the drainage venous blood and the clinicopathological findings. As the presence of CEA mRNA in the drainage venous blood is an indicator of the spread of tumor cells in patients with colorectal cancer, this assay can be used to assess the possible outcome of patients with colorectal cancer, providing one more tool for the physician-oncologist to use in designing appropriate treatments.

Prognostic significance of CEA levels and detection of CEA mRNA in draining venous blood in patients with colorectal cancer

“…These results are in accordance with the ones reported by Taniguchi et al [16] who found that the positive rates of CEA mRNA increased significantly in patients with lymph node metastases and with lymphatic invasion. On the other hand, there are studies where no correlation could be detected between the presence of CEA mRNA and any clinicopathological factors including the ones mentioned above [20,25].…”

“…In his study, 80% of patients with positive CEA mRNA did not have hepatic metastases after surgery. Similarly, Ueda et al [20] could not establish a relationship between positive CEA mRNA in portal blood and the risk of liver metastases, suggesting other factors, than the presence of cancer cells in the blood, as being also responsible for metastatic disease. Taniguchi et al [16], among 53 patients with advanced colorectal carcinoma, found that there was no recurrence in patients with CEA mRNA negative tumor drainage blood.…”

“…CEA-specific oligonucleotide primers were synthesized according to published sequence information [18][19][20]. The first PCR was performed using primers A and B, yielding a 160 bp fragment, followed by the second PCR using primers C and B to obtain a 131 bp PCR product.…”

Comparative Analysis of Tumor Cell Dissemination in Mesenteric, Central, and Peripheral Venous Blood in Patients With Colorectal Cancer

“…Recently, PCR-based protocols were introduced to further increase sensitivity and specifity of detection of colorectal cancer cells in mesenteric venous blood. 26,27 Using a carcinoembryonic antigen RT-PCR, Ueda et al 27 colon cancer. However, carcinoembryonic antigen RT-PCR may yield false-positive results in peripheral blood.…”

Unreliability of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in detecting contaminating breast cancer cells in peripheral blood stem cells due to induction of CEA by growth factors

“…CEA RT-PCR has been used for detection of micrometastases in gastro-intestinal, 13,16,17,[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] breast [13][14][15][16][17][18] and lung 38 cancers. Specificity of the PCR protocol was tested on different healthy control tissues: peripheral blood, 16,17 bone marrow 13 and lymph nodes.…”