I saw Dr. Pegram this past April and what follows is his response to my question about tumor markers. I have to say, I wish I would have pressed him a little more for details. My numbers went up recently, too, and it made me quite nervous. I won't know anything further until my next 3 month check. (This is why some oncs don't do the markers...it causes such anxiety...and if there is trouble brewing, we wouldn't know until symptoms appear or the markers continue to rise.) Here is Dr. Pegram:
Tumor Markers:
What is your opinion of having markers done?<O
I do them. They’re not very good, but I do them once in a while. It’s about like the barometric pressure. “How’s the weather today?” Oh its 760 millimeters of mercury today; well that’s one atmosphere, so that tells you maybe it’s not high or low but it doesn’t tell you the temp, clouds, precip. So that’s exactly the analogy I would make of the tumor markers. They’re a piece of a puzzle; by themselves they’re virtually worthless. But I still give them.
My CA27-29 #s have been in the normal range, but went down a little more after completing Herceptin. Might that possibly show that Herceptin had an effect?<O
They’re all in the normal range. It doesn’t mean a thing. Any bouncing around in the normal range doesn’t mean a thing. I don’t get impressed unless those things double on 2 separate occasions, back to back, a month apart. To impress me it would have to go from 20 to 40 to 80, then I’d say maybe something’s going on. That just means it’s time to take a look with some tests, but it’s not alarming. But 20 to 40 even, doesn’t get me excited. 40 doesn’t mean anything; 38 is the upper end of normal. So if it doesn’t double twice, then I’m unimpressed.