Correlation Between Nuclear DNA Modal Patterns and Preoperative Plasma Carcinoembryonic Antigen Levels in Lung Cancer Patients

In 51 patients with primary lung carcinoma, correlations betweennuclear deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) distribution patterns andpreoperative plasma carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels wereinvestigated as nonmorphological, quantitative criteria forpredicting prognosis. Plasma CEA levels were determined withan Abbott enzyme immunoassay kit. The level of 5.0 ng/ml wasconsidered the upper limit of the normal value. Patients whoselung carcinoma had already established tumor stem line cellscarrying near-triploid (3c) or near-hexaploid (6c) DNA had higherpreoperative plasma CEA levels than did patients whose carcinoniasconsisted of diploid (2c), tetraploid (4c) or octaploid (8c)tumor cells. Plasma CEA values higher than 15.0 ng/ml occurredonly in the patients with near-3c or near-6c tumor stem linecells, never in the patients with 2c, 4c or Sc tumor stem cells.These results strongly indicate a distinct correlation betweennuclear DNA modal patterns and preoperative plasma CEA levelsin lung cancer patients.