My Dad CEA levels rising

My dad had 1/3 of his lever taken out in Jan of 2008.  His Cea level 8 weeks after surgery was 2.7, he goes every 3 months and has his CEA tested.  It has gone from 2.7 to 7 to now 13. Is this normal or should he have further testing done to see if his cancer has reoccured?

[HeinrikMD]

Hi,

If your father had colon cancer and not liver cancer, then these figures would indicate that there is a recurrence. An appropriate next step would be to consider performing imaging tests. Occasionally, the CT or MRI may not show anything especially since the CEA is only 13, in such a case the scans should be repeated after 3 months until something is found or the CEA plateus/stabilizes. There are some proponents for doing a PET scan in order to look for disease that may not be captured by CT or MRI, but this is not generally agreed as a better course of action based on current experience.

Stay positive.