"Immunosuppressive acidic protein" (IAP)--an improvement for tumor marker diagnosis in epithelial ovarian cancer?

Abstract

Aim of this prospective study was to examine the value of the "Immunosuppressive Acidic Protein" (IAP) as a tumour marker for epithelial ovarian carcinomas and to compare the results with these of the established tumour marker CA-125. In 75 patients with malignant ovarian tumours and in 36 patients with benign ovarian tumours and in 68 healthy women the serum IAP and CA-125 values were determined. In dependence of the threshold for the IAP (500 or 800 microgram/ml) a pronounced lower specificity (70.2% or 97.1%) or sensitivity (88% or 40%) could be achieved in comparison with the CA-125 (95.2% specificity and 81.3% sensitivity). In only 4% of all ovarian carcinomas the CA-125 was false negative and the IAP right positive. Whereas the serum CA-125 level correlated in 86.9% of the patients with the clinical course of disease, the serum IAP level correlated only in 43.3% of the patients with their clinical course of disease. We therefore concluded, that the IAP is less suitable as a tumour marker in ovarian carcinomas than the CA-125 and even the combination of both markers is only beneficial for a very small number of patients.