The purpose of our study was to evaluate whether the combined use of serum tumor markers, CA 15-3 and TAG 72 could improve the efficacy for discriminating malignant from benign ovarian masses in patients with elevated serum CA 125 levels.
Serum CA 15-3 and TAG 72 were preoperatively measured by immunoradiometric assay in 78 patients with pelvic masses who had elevated serum CA 125 levels above 35U/ml.
In 32 patients with epithelial ovarian cancers, serum CA 125 levels were elevated above 65 U/ml in 97% and serum CA 15-3(>30U/ml) and TAG 72(>10 U/ml) levels were elevated in 59% and 50%, respectively, suggesting relatively low sensitivity of CA
15-3
and TAG 72. However, in 41 patients with benign ovarian tumors, elevations of these two markers were detected only in 7% and 5%, respectively, and particularly, both markers were not elevated among all the patients over 50 years of age Coordinate
elevations of CA 125(>35U/ml) and CA 15-3(>30U/ml) or TAG 72(>10 U/ml) could discriminate epithelial ovarian cancers from benign masses with a sensitivity of 72% and specificity of 90%. Among patients over 50 years of age, sensitivity and
specificity
were increased to 79% and 100%, respectively.
It is concluded that the combined use of CA 15-3 and TAG 72 with CA 125 could obtain an improved efficacy for discrimination of epithelial ovarian cancer, especially among patients over 50 years of age.
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