CA125

[melenzbee83]

Hi,
Im wondering, the women who have personally undergone chemotherapy and then had regular ca125's as part of your post treatment plan, how many of you, if anyone ever had a false reading i.e. above 35 only to find out through other means i.e PET-CT etc that there was no cancer present?

Mel

[melenzbee83]

fully! drives me insane too! absolutely over it all!

[Ramsay14]

I have had a rising CA-125 with clear CT and PET/CT's.  The test can be somewhat unreliable in certain circumstances, such as with an infection.  I'll tell you one thing I do know for sure, the test drives me near insane.

[sheri938]

all i can  add is with out the results of the ca125 and cat scan- i wouldn't be here- the results put the wheels in  motion and in less then a week i  received treat ment with my first  chemo  after the surg and 9 chemos i  had a much lower ca 125 count and it has just started to climb - and again i am in treatment that  hopefully will again reduce the numbers, i have total  confidence in my doctors and their team, i had gone from 155 pounds to 103 in less then 3 months and my body was shutting down when i arrived in the emerg, and woke up 2 weeks later with no memory of the ambl trip to the hospital.and the team and staff managed to bring me back from the edge, i know its difficult to be positive..  but at times that is all there is to hold on to ,anti depressants can help with that. i couldn't talk to anyone with out falling apart,    good luck to all of us.

[milashka]

mel, how did things play out for you?

My marker was 27 in December, and this week it was 24. Had another CT last month because of kidney pain, but the scan was clean too.

[melenzbee83]

lol. . .in other words the test is useless! thats what both I and my oncologist say!

I would also say after a 4 year remission, yours would be more than likely stress!! Congrats on your positive results. . . Yes i will post my good results when i get them next week. Im not stressing im doing all the right things plus feel better than i have in 4 long years! finally not in any more pain! whoot whoot!

[milashka]

Like NorthStar, I am going through it too. I had a clean CT in October but my CA-125 had jumped from 16 in July to 26 in October - that comes after a 4 year remission. Since then I read just about anything on the English and German language web but everything points to the start of a recurrence, with "other causes" more or less anecdotal or vague.

Causes for elevation can be: infections/inflammations in organs we no longer have (uterus, ovaries, etc), other cancers (don't need that!), heart disease, kidney or liver failure, hepatisis, pancreaticitis, etc. I have a hard time choosing LOL! They say it can go up from a cold or stress, but I have not been able to really confirm that. Still I am clinging to that straw right now.

I had blood drawn today so whatever number I will be told next week 12/17 at my appointment, it is in a vial on a truck somewhere to the lab. Oncologist says if it is up again he will do a PET scan. Like NorthStar, they will keep a close eye on things until something shows somewhere OTHER THAN the tumor marker.

Mel, it could very well be that your kidney/bladder issue caused the rise. It is more likely than to assume that stress cause mine to go up. Don't forget to post the good news that yours is coming back down!

This paragraph I found online sums it up pretty well:

The CA 125 test is most reliable and useful for the detection of recur-rent disease in women previously diagnosed and treated for ovariancancer. While there are certainly exceptions to this statement, generally,rising numbers over a series of tests strongly suggest that a woman is experiencing a recurrence of her disease. However, some women develop a recurrence without a rising CA 125 level. On the other hand, some women have a modest rise in the value but never develop recurrent disease.

[melenzbee83]

I was just wondering cause I have stents put in to my ureters due to scar tissue and you can constantly get urinary tract infections and I have been told a number of times that an infection especially in your bowel or bladdar can falsely elevate your ca125 number. I have a severe bladder, ureter and kidney infection due to my stents when i had the test. It was only up a bit but not what i needed to hear after the hell ive been through. Anyway not stressing having a PET-CT in two weeks and im positive it will be all clear. I feel the best ive ever felt and am doing all the right things health, mind, body and spirit wise!

Thanks for your tips ladies- I get so frustrated that in 2009 we have to have PET-CTS etc which are high in radiation because they do not have an effective post-treatment test, I mean im only 26 and dont want to live in fear for the rest of my life or have so much radiation in my body.

[westajul]

Hi,
I had the opposite situation. My ca-125 was normal but a ct scan caught recurrent tumors in my liver. For my 2nd recurrence my ca-125 was 123, so I don't consider ca-125 a good marker for me. I am all about a ct/pet scans.

[NorthStar484]

Yes, going thru it now. CA 125 up to 70, last 2 CT scans normal, have a repeat scan (pet/ct) the end of January. Have no other Sx. It is my understanding this can happen the CA 125 can elevate as long as two yrs before any recurrance is detected on a scan.

[doicat]

Mel:

I've never been down to "normal" but have had a lowering CA number when new tumors were found in a ct scan.  I do not have any great faith in this test...unless it dramatically doubles up or down.

I'm just sticking to the ct scans...the proof is in the pudding so to speak, for me at least.

Teresa

[kismetfarm]

Haven't had that - have had a reading that was persistantly sitting at 9 while scans and biopsies showed I was growing tumours though.  About six months later it decided to rise into the 200s.

I guess what I am saying is it isn't the be all and end all as markers go.  Can be slightly elevated if you have an infection too.