Colon tumor-normal CEA

I am a 42 year old female with lynch syndrome. THis November I will be a 3 year survivor of uterine cancer.  I just had a colonoscopy and it revealed a 5cm mass.  My doctor felt it looked malignant but the Bx is not back yet. I had a CEA level done and today it came back 1.0 which is normal. Is there a good chance the mass could be benign or in it's early stages?

[PaulMD]

Hi.

A 5cm mass is indeed a large mass and this should be treated as malignant until proven otherwise.  Mass as large as this also increases the probability of cancer and the biopsy is the best way to ascertain this.

A normal CEA does not rule out cancer. There are indeed a lot of colon cancers which is associated with normal CEA levels.  The possibility of uterine cancer spread to the colon is also possible.  Benign lesions would include colonic sessile polyps or adenomas.

However, it is still early to jump into conclusions and it is best to wait for the biopsy result to settle things.