The role of CEA in Eye cancer

CEA is expected to be of some assistance in malignancy diagnosis in eye tumour patients. It should be proven whether or not the CEA levels in malignant eye tumours are higher than those in benign eye tumours. Furthermore, the threshold values of the CEA levels must be determined by means of estimating its sensitivity and specificity values in order to differentiate between a benign tumour and a malignant tumour. Samples of blood serum were taken from eye tumour patients at our clinic in 1990 and 1992 respectively, and the CEA level examination was carried out with radioimmunoassay technique. The measurement of malignant and benign tumours from the tissue obtained after the surgery was based on the results of histopathological examination. The CEA level in 53 samples of blood serum, which were taken from 28 patients with benign tumours and from 25 patients with malignant tumours suggested: (a) that the mean CEA level in the group of malignant tumours is significantly higher than that in the group of benign tumours, that is, 4.982 ng/ml vs 2.961 ng/ml with a p value of 0.009 or P & <0.05, (b) that the CEA level which is employed as the threshold to distinguish between malignant and benign tumours is 3.5 ng/ml, with the sensitivity value of 60% and the specificity value of 64.3% It is concluded that CEA can be used as a supportive diagnostic aid in eye cancer.