Carcinoembryonic antigen should be concurrently checked with calcitonin to identify distant metastases in medullary thyroid cancer

Abstract

Aim: This study investigates if serum calcitonin or carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels can differentiate between locoregional and metastatic medullary thyroid cancer. Methods: A single institution retrospective analysis was performed on 88 patients with medullary thyroid cancer between 2008 and 2014. Results: In M0disease, calcitonin (p < 0.001) and CEA (p = 0.003) significantly decreased postoperatively. Not only was the correlation significant between calcitonin and CEA preoperatively (r = 0.72; p < 0.001) and postoperatively (r = 0.68; p < 0.001), calcitonin could extrapolate CEA levels (p < 0.001). These findings were statistically insignificant in metastatic disease. Conclusion: Independently, calcitonin and CEA fail to differentiate between locoregional and metastatic disease. Both are essential for prognostication: loss of concordance is suspicious for metastatic disease. Hence, discordant CEA and calcitonin levels should be an indication to pursue additional imaging.