CA-125 AUC as a new prognostic factor for patients with ovarian cancer.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of the present study was to investigate the usefulness of the CA-125 area under the curve (AUC) as a new kinetic parameter for predicting overall survival in patients with ovarian cancer. In addition, the relationship of CA-125 AUC with other prognostic factors of ovarian cancer was evaluated.


METHODS
Ninety-two patients that underwent primary line chemotherapy within 4 months after submission to cytoreductive surgery were included. For each patient, CA-125 AUC was calculated and a statistical analysis was conducted to compare CA-125 AUC behavior among patients according to several covariates.


RESULTS
The mean age at diagnostic time was found to be 55.5 (16.1-82.4) years with a mean survival of 39.2 (3.5-100.1; SE = 2.6) months. Across FIGO stage I, II, III, and IV patients had a mean CA-125 AUC of 18.2, 24.6, 147.8, and 574.6 IU/ml*days, respectively (P < 0.05). At the evaluation date, living patients had a mean CA-125 AUC of 40.1 in contrast to 234.1 IU/ml*days (P < 0.05) for deceased ones. Patients with a complete response to primary chemotherapy had a mean CA-125 AUC of 48.8, while patients with a partial response had a mean of 251.7 IU/ml*days, and patients with no response or disease progression had a mean of 316.5 IU/ml*days (P < 0.05). The best CA-125 AUC performance is in predicting patient complete response to chemotherapy with a cut-off of 100 IU/ml*days and an accuracy of 82%.


CONCLUSIONS
Despite CA-125 AUC high correlation with the FIGO stage, residual disease, and patient final outcome, the main interest of CA-125 AUC calculation is to evaluate the treatment efficacy and to foresee a full chemotherapy response. Further studies should be carried out before extrapolating these results to other data sets.
Mano
A
A
Laboratory of Pharmacology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Coimbra, Portugal.
Falcão
A
A
Godinho
I
I
Santos
J
J
Leitão
F
F
Oliveira
C
C
Caramona
M
M
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D019540:Area Under Curve; D018394:CA-125 Antigen / Q000097:blood*; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000097:blood* / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies
D018394:CA-125 Antigen