Detection of breast cancer cells in the bone marrow of early breast cancer patients using quantitative RT PCR for CEA

9638 Background: Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is widely used as a serum tumor marker. Several systems for the CEA-RT-PCR approach have been reported to date. In this study, we have evaluated quantitative CEA-RT-PCR as a diagnostic tool for detection of isolated tumor cells in the bone marrow of early breast cancer patients prior adjuvant systemic therapy. Methods: We obtained bone marrow aspirates from 70 patients with stage I (37%), II (60%), and III (3%) breast cancer who underwent either immediate complete resection of the tumor or were planned for neoadjuvant therapy with subsequent curative surgery. mRNA was isolated using QIAamp RNA blood mini kit (Qiagen). Subsequently quantitative RT-PCR for the expression of CEA was performed. Results: CEA was detected in samples from 29 (41%) out of 70 patients. With a median follow-up of 22 month we observed 6 recurrences, two in patients with positive bone marrow. At the time of analysis 2 patients died. None of these deaths were tumor related. CEA in the bo...