Malignant mesothelioma and CEA staining

Our plain-English summary of Malignant mesothelioma and CEA staining, by K. Mukai (The American Journal of Surgical Pathology, 1985).

The study

• Author: K. Mukai
• Journal: The American Journal of Surgical Pathology
• Published: 1985;9(2):159-60
• Type of article: Letter
• Cited by: 12 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This item was a letter to the editor, not a new study, from a pathologist at the National Defense Medical College in Japan. It responded to a report by Holden and Churg, which had found positive staining for CEA (carcinoembryonic antigen) in eight of 22 malignant mesothelioma cases and had concluded that a positive CEA stain does not necessarily rule out mesothelioma. The letter writer argued that those results needed caution. The author wrote that most anti-CEA antisera also react with a different substance, nonspecific cross-reacting antigen (NCA), which is neither tumor- nor organ-specific. The author added that CEA staining results are not valid unless this reaction is first removed by absorbing the antisera with NCA. Earlier reports describing CEA in mesothelioma had used untreated antisera and so may have detected NCA. Two of three studies that found no CEA in mesothelioma had used treated antisera. The author concluded that Holden and Churg's conclusion was premature and that whether malignant mesothelioma can express CEA had not been fully answered. The letter did not discuss asbestos.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: letter to the editor (commentary on published studies; no new data)
• Who was studied: No patients were studied; the letter discussed a published immunohistochemical study of malignant mesothelioma by Holden and Churg and other published reports
• Main results:
  • The letter summarized the earlier Holden and Churg report (not this letter's own data) as finding positive CEA staining in eight of 22 malignant mesothelioma cases
  • The author argued that most anti-CEA antisera cross-react with nonspecific cross-reacting antigen (NCA)
  • The author argued that CEA staining results are not valid unless the anti-NCA activity is removed, which can be done by absorbing the antisera with an extract of human lung or spleen
  • The author argued that earlier reports finding CEA in mesothelioma used antisera that had not been preabsorbed with NCA, so they may have detected NCA rather than CEA
  • The author noted that two of three studies showing no CEA in malignant mesothelioma used preabsorbed antisera without anti-NCA activity
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that Holden and Churg's conclusion was premature and that the question of whether malignant mesothelioma can express CEA had not been fully answered

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Mesothelioma.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Malignant Mesothelioma.

Related studies

• Immunocytological staining reactions of anti-carcinoembryonic antigen, Ca, and anti-human milk fat globule monoclonal antibodies on benign and malignant exfoliated mesothelial cells — A.K. Ghosh, E.B. Butler (1987)
• Mesothelioma versus adenocarcinoma: false-positive CEA and Leu-M1 staining due to hyaluronic acid — J.A. Robb (1989)
• Expression of the small cell carcinoma antigens of cluster-5 and cluster-5A in primary lung tumours — A. Maier, U. Schmidt, et al. (1989)
• Evaluation of pleural CYFRA 21-1 and carcinoembryonic antigen in the diagnosis of malignant pleural effusions — G. Salama, M. Miédougé, et al. (1998)
• Changing clinical course of patients with malignant mesothelioma: implications for FNA cytology and utility of immunocytochemical staining — G.H. Yu, L. Soma, et al. (2001)
• Lung surfactant protein-A and carcinoembryonic antigen in pleural effusions due to lung adenocarcinoma and malignant mesothelioma — N. Shijubo, Y. Honda, et al. (1995)

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