Five years' follow-up of patients with elevated carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and alcoholic liver disease, with special reference to mortality rate and development of malignancy.

Plasma-carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) was analyzed by a modified CEA-Roche radioimmunoassay (RIA) in 109 alcoholics with various degrees of liver disorders. The total mortality rate during the 5-year observation period was 48%, compared with an expected mortality rate of 12% (p less than 0.001). Sixty-one per cent of 46 alcoholics with CEA values greater than or equal to 5.0 micrograms/l died during the observation period of 5 years, compared with 38% of 63 cases with normal CEA values (p less than 0.05), indicating a possible prognostic value of CEA. Ten patients developed malignancies during the observation period, which is more than three times the expected cancer frequency in this groups. The frequency of malignant disease was not higher in alcoholics with initially elevated CEA than in those with normal values. Thus, CEA seems to be of no value for predicting malignancy in alcoholics.