Correlation between preoperative serum levels of five biomarkers and relationships between these biomarkers and cancer stage in epithelial overian cancer

Abstract

Objective: To examine the correlation among the preoperative serum levels of five biomarkers presumed to be useful for early detection of epithelial ovarian cancer and evaluate the relationships between serum levels of these five biomarkers and epithelial ovarian cancer stage. Methods: We analyzed 56 newly diagnosed epithelial ovarian cancer patients. Preoperative serum levels of leptin, prolactin, osteopontin (OPN), insulin-like growth factor-II, and CA-125 were determined by ELISA. We also examined the correlation between the serum levels of the biomarkers and ovarian cancer stage. Significant differences in the mean serum levels of two proteins, leptin and CA-125, were observed between stage subsets. Results: There was a significant negative correlation between prolactin and leptin and a significant positive correlation between prolactin and OPN. Of the five biomarkers, only the mean serum CA-125 level showed a significant positive correlation with cancer stage (Spearman ρ=0.24, p＜0.01). OPN showed a marginally significant positive correlation with stage (Spearman ρ=0.14, p=0.07). Conclusion:We demonstrated the relationship between five biomarkers in epithelial ovarian cancer. These tumor markers may be useful in screening for ovarian cancer, in characterizing disease states, and in developing therapeutic interventions targeting these marker proteins. Large-scale studies that include potential confounding factors and modifiers are necessary to more accurately define the value of these novel biomarkers in ovarian cancer.

Identification of Serum Monocyte Chemoattractant Protein-1 and Prolactin as Potential Tumor Markers in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

“…Elevation of serum prolactin, on the other hand, had also been observed in other malignancies and explored for their potential as diagnostic biomarkers, such as in lung and ovarian cancers [47]–[51]. However, although shown to be potentially useful as a member of multi-marker diagnostic panels, none of these studies could establish prolactin as an independent cancer marker.…”

Clinical efficacy of serum human epididymis protein 4 as a diagnostic biomarker of ovarian cancer: A pilot study

“…Specifically, these authors collected preoperative serum samples from 78 patients with pelvic masses and measured tumor-associated antigens CA-125, CA-15-3, and TAG 72 by immunoradiometric assay in order to evaluate the efficacy of these markers in differentiating benign and malignant pelvic masses, finding that among patients over 50 years of age the three marker combination was associated with a sensitivity of 79% and a specificity of 100% [26]. Another study of 56 newly-diagnosed epithelial ovarian cancer patients, showed that of five serum biomarkers-leptin, prolactin, osteoponin, insulin-like growth factor-II and CA-125-only the preoperative serum CA-125 level had a significant positive correlation with cancer stage ( P <0.01) [27]. …”

Prognostic significance of human epididymis protein 4 in epithelial ovarian cancer

“…A number of novel markers for ovarian cancer have been identified in recent years, including mesothelin, a 110-kd fragment of epidermal growth factor receptor, lysophophatidic acid, HE4, prostasin, osteopontin, and human kallikreins 6 and 10 [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Of these, HE4 is one of the most intensively studied of the novel biomarkers.…”