title: The value of CA 125 and CA72-4 in management of patients with epithelial ovarian cancer.
abstract: The role of the tumor markers CA125 and CA72-4 has been evaluated in the diagnosis and management of ovarian cancer. Both markers were measured in 30 patients with proven epithelial ovarian cancer, 30 patients with benign pelvic masses and 30 normal women. CA125 and CA72-4 were measured using the luminometric immunoassay and immunoradiometric assay respectively. All patients with ovarian cancer were submitted to surgical staging and cytoreduction followed by adjuvant platinum based chemotherapy for 3-6 courses. Fixing the specificity at 95%, CA125 had a sensitivity of 76.7% at a cut-off 85 u/ml while CA72-4 had a sensitivity of 70% at a cut-off 8.5 u/ml. The combination of CA72-4 with CA125 increased the sensitivity to 95% while fixing the specificity at 95%. Among seven cases with stage I and II ovarian cancer five cases had CA125 level below 85 U/ml, three patients out of them had CA72-4 above 8.5 U/ml. CA 72-4 could reflect the residual disease following cytoreduction and could improve the detection of relapse by CA125.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  CA72-4 could complement the standard tumor marker CA125 both in diagnosis and follow up of patients with epithelial ovarian cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Ain Shams Faculty of Medicine, Cairo, Egypt. ahmed_kassim@usa.net
authors.forename: S T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Fayed
authors.forename: S M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Ahmad
authors.forename: S K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Kassim
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Khalifa
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D015295:Antigens, Tumor-Associated, Carbohydrate / Q000032:analysis*; D018394:CA-125 Antigen / Q000032:analysis*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009375:Neoplasms, Glandular and Epithelial / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
chemical_list: D015295:Antigens, Tumor-Associated, Carbohydrate; D018394:CA-125 Antigen; C083825:CA-72-4 antigen