engleski

Relationship of serum CA 125 level after primary therapy of epithelial ovarian cancer and disease relapse

Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the relationship of serum CA125 level at the end of primary therapy (surgery and chemotherapy) to appearance of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) relapse. Lower CA125 levels generally are associated with fewer relapses and longer survival. Methods: This retrospective study assessed 75 patients with EOC. Chi-squared test (χ² test) was used to examine the relation between variables. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were compared using the Wilcoxon (Breslow, Gehan) test. Results: The median follow up time was 15 months (range 1-121). The majority of patients had advanced stage III or IV disease (n=52, 69.3%). The analysis revealed that the lowest incidence of tumor recurrence have the patients in which CA125 level after initial therapy returned to normal values and persisted within these values. In this group of patients the incidence of relapse was 23.08%. If the CA125 level did not fall completely within the normal range or starts to rise again, the tumor relapses occur in 58.33 % and 95.24% (χ² = 18.630, p < 0.0001). The carboplatin and paclitaxel chemotherapy had very low efficacy if applied after secondary rise of CA125 level, since the incidence of tumor relapses in these patients (90%) was not lower than in patients who did not receive preventive chemotherapy (85%) (χ² = 0.1, p= 0.3943). Conclusions: The serum CA125 level at the end of primary therapy is associated with EOC relapse. Targeting therapy for an individual patient with secondary rise of CA125 level might be more effective than selecting drug empirically.

Ovarian cancer; CA 125

nije evidentirano