[The correlation between the productive capacity of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and prognosis in gastric cancer].

In 130 resected specimens of gastric cancer, CEA was stained by the enzyme labeled antibody method. The positive rate of CEA stain was 74.6% and higher in well differentiated adenocarcinoma, mucinous adenocarcinoma, and signet ring cell carcinoma. The positive rate was lower in poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma. The 5-year survival rate was higher in the CEA (-) group in stage II, and higher in the CEA (+) group in stage III (p less than 0.05) and stage IV. This suggests that the correlation of the CEA stain and the prognosis varies with the stage of cancer.