TUESDAY, Dec. 16 (HealthDay News) -- As early as six weeks after surgery, carcinoembryonic antigen levels can help determine whether or not a patient requires adjuvant chemotherapy, according to research published in the December issue of the Archives of Surgery.

Elie Oussoultzoglou, M.D., of the Hopiteaux Universitaires de Strasbourg-Universite Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France, and colleagues conducted a study of 213 patients undergoing liver resection for colorectal metastases. They measured carcinoembryonic antigen levels a week before and six weeks after surgery to sort the patients into three groups: 69 patients with normal preoperative and postoperative levels (group A), 111 with elevated preoperative and normal postoperative levels (group B), and 33 with elevated levels both before and after surgery (group C).

For the patients in group A, five-year overall and disease-free survival rates were 50.2 percent and 21.9 percent, respectively, versus 38.5 percent and 18.3 percent, respectively, for group B, and zero in group C, the researchers report. When the data was subjected to multivariate analysis, the independent prognostic factors were perioperative carcinoembryonic antigen levels, hepatic pedicle lymph node involvement, and number and size of colorectal liver metastases, the investigators found.

"Preoperative carcinoembryonic antigen measurement did not predict performance of complete resection," the authors write. "However, our study showed that postoperative carcinoembryonic antigen level six weeks after colorectal liver metastases resection and its normalization represent the most reliable predictive criteria for complete and successful hepatic metastasectomy."

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