title: Within-subject variation of carcinoembryonic antigen in colorectal cancer -- application of reference of change values and individual reference ranges to patient follow-up.
abstract: Dynamic interpretation of results is an alternative approach to the conventional cut-off procedure. Reference change limit is a valuable reference point to interpret dynamically tumour marker values when only very few serial results can be obtained from a patient after treatment. In this paper, a reference change limit of 2.0 microg/l was estimated for carcinoembryonic antigen in patients with complete remission of colorectal cancer. This figure means that a difference greater than 2.0 microg/l has at least a chance of being statistically significant (at 0.05 probability). As complementary information to the reference change limits, with more than four successive results, a simple time series model can be used to obtain predictive limits for the next observation.
authors.affiliation: Servei de Bioquímica, Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, Barcelona,Spain.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mora
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Queraltó
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000276:immunology*; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001699:Biometry; D001774:Blood Chemical Analysis / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002272:Carcinoembryonic Antigen / Q000097:blood*; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012016:Reference Values
chemical_list: D002272:Carcinoembryonic Antigen