Carcinoembryonic antigen: assay following heat compared with perchloric acid extraction in patients with colon cancer, non-neoplastic gastrointestinal diseases, or chronic renal failure.

Heat inactivation has been proposed as an alternative to perchloric acid (PCA) precipitation for the extraction of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) from human plasma. We examined a commercial RIA kit using heat inactivation, and compared results with those obtained with PCA precipitation. Adequate sensitivity (1.5 micrograms CEA/l plasma), satisfactory analytical recovery of CEA added to plasma, and dilutional linearity of samples found to have elevated CEA concentrations, were demonstrated for the heat-inactivation assay. Between-assay precision was better with the heat inactivation than with the PCA assay. Although the absolute concentration of CEA estimated after heat inactivation was consistently lower than that estimated after PCA extraction of plasma specimens, there was excellent correlation between results obtained with the two methods in colon cancer patients free of disease, colon cancer patients with residual or recurrent disease, patients with benign gastrointestinal disease, and in patients with chronic renal failure. We conclude that the heat-inactivation assay is an excellent alternative to the PCA assay.