The clinical implication of serum CA_(125) assay in endometrial carcinoma patients

Objective To investigated the clinical significance of serum CA 125 in endometrial carcinoma patients Methods A total of 141 patients who were treated in Peking University First Hospital and People's Hospital from March 1992 to March 2002 were investigated for the change of their serum CA 125 levels. The serum CA 125 level was measured using radioimmunological assay before the operation of each case and during the period of follow up. CA 125 expression was detected with immunohistochemistry in 14 endometrial carcinoma specimens. By reference to clinical and pathological data of the patients,the correlation between preoperative serum CA 125 level,clinical and pathological developments and serum CA 125 levels in the pre and post recurrence the endometrial carcinoma patients were analyzed. Results CA 125 expression was positive in all of the 14 endometrial carcinoma specimens that detected with immunohistochemical staining,and the intensity of staining did not relate with serum CA 125 level. Of the 141 patients,32 (22.7%) were CA 125 positive. The positive rate in stage I,II,III and IV were 12 1%,31 6%,46 2% and 60 0%,respectively. It indicated that CA 125 positive rate increased with tumor stages ( P 0 01) CA 125 positive rate also increased in the patients with deep myometrium invasion,cervical involvement,positive peritoneal cytology,pelvic or para-aortic lymph node involvement,and the size of lesion (≥2cm) ( P 0 01). Of the 13 recurrent patients during the period of follow-up,serum CA 125 was higher than 35 U/ml in nine patients,whose serum CA 125 levels were abnormal before their operations,whereas serum CA 125 levels remained normal in the other four patients whose CA 125 levels were normal before operation. Conclusions Serum CA 125 level is valuable in predicting the endometrial carcinoma processing and may be helpful in estimating the prognosis of the patients with abnormal serum CA 125 level before operation.