Clinical evaluation of serum NSE and CEA in primary lung cancer patients

: The clinical value of serum neuron specific enolase (NSE) as a tumor marker was evaluated in comparison with simultaneously measured serum CEA, using 74 cases of lung cancers, 13 cases of non-tumorous and non-neurological disease and 28 normal volunteers. The results obtained were as follows: Thirty-five out of the 74 lung cancer cases showed positive serum NSE levels. However, none of the cases of non-tumorous, non-neurological disease and normal volunteers demonstrated more than 10ng/ml NSE which was significantly different from the results of lung cancer cases. We found a higher degree of NSE positiveness in cases of small cell carcinoma than in cases of other histological types. However, no obvious difference of CEA positiveness between any histological types was revealed. Both serum NSE and CEA showed an increase in positive rate in parallel with the progress of stages, including 80.4% of cases of stages III and IV disease which had positive serum levels of both or either of the two markers. However, we could not find any obvious correlation between serum NSE and CEA. The serum levels of both markers clearly decreased after surgery, serum CEA level being considered to be a better reflection of host tumor burden than NSE. In conclusion, the simultaneous testing of serum NSE and CEA is considered to be very useful for evaluating the clinical course or the effect of cancer therapy in lung cancer patients, with higher specificity and sensitivity.