Expression And Clinical Significance Of Carcinoembryonic Antigen MRNA In Peripheral Blood Cells Of Patients With Breast Cancer

Objective: The present study is to investigate the mRNA expression of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) in peripheral blood from patients with breast cancer or breast hyperplasia , and to evaluate its clinical significance.Methods: Peripheral blood samples are collected from 52 patients with breast cancer, 40 patients with breast hyperplasia, and 20 healthy volunteers . CEA mRNA is detected by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and serum CEA is detected by Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. X~2 analysis is used as the statistics method in this protocol.Results: The products of RT-PCR were analyzed by agrose gel electrophoresis. And their molecular weight is standardized by markers in the position of about 132bp. CEA positive is determined above 5μg/L. The positive rate of CEA mRNA expression in blood samples of 52 patients with breast cancer is 40. 4%. And no healthy volunteers is positive. But two of the 40 patients with breast hyperplasia (5.0%) are positive. The positive rate increases with the pathological staging and lymph node metastasis, but there are no significant relations between the rate and the malignant extent of cell differentiation. Conclusion: The expression of CEA mRNA in peripheral blood cells correlates with the pathological staging and lymph node metastasis of breast cancer, and it could be of potential use to monitor the micrometastases of tumor.