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ONCOLOGY MEETING: CEA-Scan Detects Rectal Cancer Earlier SAN DIEGO, CA -- March 26, 1998 -- More than 100,000 patients whose colorectal cancer recurs each year after surgery may have a second chance for a cure -- if their doctors follow them with CEA-Scan (Arcitumomab), a nuclear imaging study developed by Immunomedics, Inc., instead of depending upon a CT, colonoscopy or blood tests. These are the conclusions from a paper presented by Austrian cancer surgeon Peter Lechner at the joint meeting of the Society for Surgical Oncology and World Federation of Surgical Oncology Societies in San Diego. Lechner followed 40 consecutive patients with different stages of rectal cancer using CT, colonoscopy and CEA-Scan -- and found that CEA-Scan was the most helpful in finding potentially curable patients. "CEA-Scan helped us increase by a factor of four our ability to find recurrent rectal cancer while it was still potentially curable," said Peter Lechner, MD, FACS, chief of the department of surgery, City Hospital of Kosterneuburg, Austria. "And after an average of 22 months following surgery, the patients we operated on were all alive and apparently tumour-free. "By imaging patients with CEA-Scan every six months during the first two years after their surgery and then every 12 months until five years had passed, we picked up four times more patients curable with a second operation than without this new nuclear imaging study." During the same period, among 40 tougher-to-cure rectal cancer patients, Lechner's team found and apparently cured six patients, guided by CEA-Scan. More than 50,000 Americans/year experience recurrent colorectal cancer. Each year, more than 140,000 Americans undergo surgery for cancer of the colon or rectum. Unfortunately, about 40 percent will experience a recurrence within two years. Because CT, colonoscopy and blood tests aren't very sensitive to the early signs of recurrence, only about a third of patients with recurrent colorectal cancer are candidates for a second operation and of those that get one, only about a third actually experience long-term absence of disease. In Lechner's study, 16 of 40 patients developed 22 surgically-confirmed recurrences (tumours at the site where cancer had been earlier removed) and/or metastases (tumours that spread via the blood or lymphatic system to other organs). CT identified three out of seven (43 percent) lymph node metastases and all three liver metastases. Among nine extraluminal presacral recurrences (tumours outside the bowel, in the pelvis), CT detected three for sure -- another three were questionable. By comparison, CEA-Scan identified five out of seven (71 percent) lymph node metastases and two of three liver tumours. With eight true positive results in nine (89 percent) presacral recurrences, CEA-Scan was significantly superior to CT. One critical pelvic tumour was exclusively found by CEA-Scan. "We conclude that CEA-Scan is the method of choice in the detection of recurrences after rectal cancer surgery," Lechner said. CEA-Scan enables doctors to take pictures of small tumours that have spread beyond the main tumour in the bowel itself. These small tumours -- called metastases -- have been difficult for previous medical imaging studies to pick up, and often elude detection by the surgeon during the operation to remove the bowel tumour. CEA-Scan takes its name from carcinoembryonic antigen, or CEA, a protein normally expressed by embryonic human tissue in the early weeks after conception. Solid malignant tumours, like those of the colon, breast, lung and female reproductive system, express CEA. CEA-Scan carries a mild radioactive isotope to these elusive metastases, sticks to them and, in effect, lights them up on the computer screen of a conventional nuclear camera. Patients are scanned about three hours after injection, and findings are available the same day. More information on: Immunomedics, Inc.. E-mail this page to a friend or colleague! To print, use this version