The prognostic impact of the carcinoembryonic antigen in ampullary cancer - A retrospective single center study

Background: Carcinoembryonic antigen cell adhesion molecule (CEA) is a commonly immunohistochemically used antibody in pathological routine diagnostics with an overexpression in different cancers. We aimed to examine the immunohistochemically detectable CEA level in ampullary cancer and to correlate it with clinico-pathological data. Methods: Shot-gun proteomics revealed CEA in undifferentiated ampullary cancer cell lines. Next, tumor tissue of 40 ampullary cancers of a retrospective single center cohort of 40 patients was stained immunohistochemically for CEA; CEA expression was determined and correlated with clinico-pathological data. Results: Thirty-six patient specimens were included in statistical analysis. CEA expression and lymph node ratio (LNR) were the only independent predictors of overall survival in multivariate analysis. Conclusion: To our knowledge, cell line and patient cohorts are the largest and characterized cohorts examined for CEA so far. Hereby, CEA expression in ampullary cancer cells permits an estimation of outcome and suggests an opportunity for individualized CEA-directed therapy. Further trials with larger cohorts are needed to verify our results and to integrate CEA immunohistochemistry into clinical routine.