Correlation of carcinoembryonic antigen in tissue sections with spread of mammary carcinoma

Abstract

An immunoperoxidase technique for the histological demonstration of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) was applied to paraffin sections from 74 breast carcinomas and 43 benign breast lesions. Sixty-six percent of the carcinomas and the only case of granular cell myoblastoma examined were CEA positive. Two examples of mammary dysplasia (7%) showed foci of CEA positive acini. All tumor tissue found in lymphatics and in metastases in lymph nodes was CEA positive, including 2 cases where the primary tumor was CEA negative, and all the metastases examined from CEA positive tumors. A significant relationship was found between CEA positivity of the primary tumor and the presence of lymph node metastases.