PubMedDate not supplied
We have recently studied a large family of 80 persons in which 47 were examined. The evaluation included history, blood pressure determination, palpation of the thyroid gland and determination of serum carcino-embryonic antigen (C.E.A.) and calcitonin (C.T.). Two members of the kindred had a proven M.C.T. without pheochromocytoma, hyperparathyroidism or Cushing's disease and two others a probable M.C.T. Four members suffered from intestinal occlusion and death occurred in three of them. Our conclusions are: 1) In this family traced through 4 generations: it appears that M.C.T. is transmitted as an autosomal dominant trait with a high degree of penetrance; 2) Our cases associated with those reported in the literature in the past few years point to the existence of a rare but distinct syndrome characterised by the association of M.C.T. and congenital megacolon with hyperplasia of the myenteric plexus; 3) As far as we know, this is the first indication of C.E.A. coupled with elevated calcitonin among several individuals of the same family. We confirm here the conclusions of previous studies: "C.E.A. is a valuable tumour marker which can be used for the detection of M.C.T., particularly if no calcitonin radio-immuno assay is available.