Expression of Multiple Tumour Markers in Serum from Patients with Ovarian Carcinoma and Healthy Women

Abstract

Serum samples from 70 patients with bulky ovarian carcinomas, 46 patients with surgically extirpated Stage I ovarian carcinomas, and 108 aged-matched healthy control subjects were assayed for 10 tumour-associated antigens. Levels of expression of each antigen were progressively increased in treated Stage I and bulky disease patients over healthy controls. Levels of expression in treated Stage I patients inversely reflected the interval between surgery and collection of the sample. For patients with bulky disease, determination of correlation coefficients of expression of each antigen against each other antigen showed that in 9 of 45 such relationships, the coefficients were greater than 0.30, suggesting significant coexpression. The best correlation was found for CA125 and MSA, HMFG2 and MSA, DCA and MSA, and DCA and HMFG2. By multivariate discriminant function analysis, the combination of 2 assays (CA125 and NB/70K) was found to increase specificity of detection of ovarian carcinoma over one assay alone (CA125). Use of more than these 2 assays increased sensitivity only marginally. The attained specificity is insufficient for use as a screening assay for ovarian cancer alone, given the low prevalence in the community of this disease.