Clinical significance of serum level of CA19-9 in patients with ovarian neoplasm

Objective To investigate the clinical significance of elevated serum levels of CA19-9 in differential diagnosis of ovarian neoplasm.Methods 377 patients with ovarian neoplasm treated in Beijing Friendship Hospital from January,2007 to December,2008 were enrolled retrospectively.Results The serum level of CA19-9 in 89 patients (23.6%) was higher than normal. Most of them were patients with mature teratoma,ovarian endometriosis cyst,borderline tumor and malignant tumor,the positive rates were 27.3%,31.7%,42.9% and 28.1%,respectively.These rates were higher than that of benign ovarian cancer (19.3%),ovarian tumor like condition (23.9%) and ovarian metastatic carcinoma (12.5%),but no significant difference was found (P0.05). The positive rate of CA19-9 level in bilateral mature teratoma patients (53.3%) was higher than that in unilateral mature teratoma patients(19.6%) (P0.05).The specificity and sensitivity of CA19-9 level in detecting malignant ovarian tumor were 76.6% and 25%.While combined with CA125 level,they changed to 82.5% and 59.1%.Conclusions CA19-9 is useful for diagnosing teratoma and ovarian endometriosis cyst. It is helpful for detected of ovarian neoplasms combined with CA125.