Hi. The short answer is that we know it can be elevated in non-cancerous conditions but we are not sure why. Since it is a protein produced in the embryo as it grows in the womb, once we are adults we should not have any in the blood stream. I personally wonder if it is due to conditions that cause a high cell turnover.

Tumor markers are used as part of the monitoring process. When the levels go up from a previous reading, it usually means the tumor or cancer is back or growing, when the levels go down, it means that the treatment or therapy is working. This is considering the patient’s whole picture of what is going on with them.

The number is a concentration of this type of protein in your blood. If it is in the normal range, then it simply means that you have as much AFP in your blood as the average person. AFP as a cancer marker is useful in the context of monitoring cancer, treatment success, recurrences, etc. If it was present and elevated at diagnosis. AFP is also used to monitor fetal health during pregnancy as it can help detect neural tube defects and genetic conditions such as Down syndrome

@@DrAsClinicalLabVideos thank you for the reply I was nervous because means was higher than my cousin by 1.2 and it made me wonder like why the numbers anyways and why would one’s number be higher but still classified as normal. I was telling myself I need to watch it because 3.8 is normal but my cousin’s was 2.6 I really don’t like the normal range number chart at all.

Cali, the normal ranges attempt to capture what your average healthy person would be. But we are all different and unique, which is why it ends up being a range based on healthy population data and one person's normal can be slightly different than another person's normal.

@@DrAsClinicalLabVideos meaning I could be not as healthy as he next person. Can the numbers decrease and if so what can help that?

not sure that you could characterize it as "not as healthy as" but more like "not the same as". we are still unsure of the function of AFP in healthy humans, but it is useful as a tumor marker in liver cancers. So if you wanted to focus any health promoting efforts, why not focus on a healthy liver? we can all do well to have a healthy liver!

Look at your report for the normal range for their machine/methodology. They are not standard

@@DrAsClinicalLabVideos what does it mean dr?😅 I'm not understand

it should indicate on the report if this is within the normal range (also known as the reference range)

@@DrAsClinicalLabVideos normal range 0-5...

Here is some more info about the CEA test. It is most helpful if you follow up with your doctor and get it checked again by the same lab to see if it changes. www.testing.com/tests/carcinoembryonic-antigen-cea/