Raising Cea Changing Med's??

Hoping someone can give us alittle insight. We have posted before regarding my husbands stage 4 colon cancer w/ many mets to the liver. His cea has been going down for months and his last cat scan  2 months ago was indicating that the chemo was working. So when he got to his 12th chemo treatment it was decided to keep on going with chemo for a few more months to see if he may be able to have surgery. We even saw a surgeon who said that when my husband was first dx his liver looked like swiss cheese, but now you can see the liver and that if we continue the treatrments maybe surgery . He said we could do a pet scan in 3 more months and if things were still improving then surgery.

 We were so happy because when he was first dx they said that chemo ws the only treatment because there were to many  lessions in the liver. We just returned from his 17th session of chemo and his cea has risen for the third time. He will have a ct scan right away and then they may change his treatment. They tell us not to worry and that they have many types of meds, but how can we not worry.

Has anyone had their cea levels go up and still had a postive ct scan???

thanks

at dx it was 3900. it has dropped to as low as 450 until it began to rise. In the last 3 chemo sessions it has risen 300 points total. I t is now 752.

my cea level was aslo out of wack and my liver was covered with two many lessions to count, plus i had two big tumors...but no more I completed pre-surgery chemo with great success, the chemo did its job  with all the swiss cheese and just about shrank the big tumors down to peanut size.  so far my CEA level is 0.4  its holding steady I had a liver resection late Feb and thank God he got it all, and im very happy my CEA level is that of a cancer free person   good luck  hope this helps

Bobby 

On 6/21/2008 Bobbygene wrote:

my cea level was aslo out of wack and my liver was covered with two many lessions to count, plus i had two big tumors...but no more I completed pre-surgery chemo with great success, the chemo did its job  with all the swiss cheese and just about shrank the big tumors down to peanut size.  so far my CEA level is 0.4  its holding steady I had a liver resection late Feb and thank God he got it all, and im very happy my CEA level is that of a cancer free person   good luck  hope this helps

Bobby 

bobby,

thank you for your post, how wonderful for you! What kind of chemo med's were you on and did your cea ever bounce up for awhile and them come down?

googie

Googie,

 I am on chemo for mets to some remote lymph nodes and my oncologist told me not to drink any alcohol while I am on chemo.  Here's what I would recommend:

1. Exercise - If your husband is capable of walking 30 to 60 minutes everday, he should do it.  Exercise reduces the glucose level in the blood and helps reduce recurrences.

2. Diet - Increase the fruits and vegetables in his diet.  I eat steamed broccoli at leaast 7 times a week along with carrots, green beans, salad,  grapes, strawberries, and blueberries.  Also, reduce the level of sugars, fats, red meat and eat no processed meats (anything from the deli).

3 Green Tea - drink 2 to 3 cups of green tea every day. Any of the national brands is fine.  I drink Bigelow's. Don't add any milk or sugar to the tea.

My CEA level was 11 when I had a recurrence and using the above changes, I have been able to reduce it to 2.1.  I'm hoping that the chemo reduces it even further.

Good luck.

Jack

Jack,

thanks for the infor. He has been eating lots of veggies and fruit, but I'm having alittle trouble with him not wanting red meat. I'll keep working on him!!

good luck

googie

On 6/21/2008 Bobbygene wrote:

my cea level was aslo out of wack and my liver was covered with two many lessions to count, plus i had two big tumors...but no more I completed pre-surgery chemo with great success, the chemo did its job  with all the swiss cheese and just about shrank the big tumors down to peanut size.  so far my CEA level is 0.4  its holding steady I had a liver resection late Feb and thank God he got it all, and im very happy my CEA level is that of a cancer free person   good luck  hope this helps

Bobby 

I was diagnosed with cc and liver mets in march 08. I have mets in both liver nodes. I think like 8 mets biggest is like 2 cm? Team of docs got me on FOLFOX with Avastin CEA has gone down from 14 to 3. 

The best chance of cure is always liver resection and colon resection. Is this what you did? Did they operate on the primary colon tumor and the liver resection at the same time. Were the liver lessions in both lobes?