The biological function and distribution of the CEA splice variant in normal and cancerous tissues is unknown. To determine the expression frequency of full-length and CEA splice variant transcripts in normal and cancerous human tissues, real-time qPCR was performed using both RNA isolated from frozen primary human pancreatic tissues and cDNA generated from frozen colorectal, lung, breast and pancreatic tissues purchased in the form of multi-tissue cDNA arrays. Each analysis used sequence-specific primers that specifically amplified either fulllength CEA or CEA splice variant sequences.