Demographic profile, staging and CA-125 levels in a patient with pelvic lesions of probable ovarian origin at presentation in a tertiary care hospital

Abstract

Background: In Indian women, ovarian cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancer. We wanted to analyze the demographic profile, staging, and sensitivity and specificity of CA-125 levels in a patient with ovarian cancer in an indian scenario.Methods: A retrospective study was performed and information was collected from 250 patients who visited SGRD Hospital, Vallah, Amritsar from 1 April 2016 to 30 April 2020, with pelvic lesions of probable ovarian origin on demographic profile, the staging of the disease and CA-125 levels. Data was collected, analyzed, and presented in frequency tables and figures.Results: The study comprised of 250 patients. CA-125 was mainly used to investigate a wide range of signs and symptoms and few tests were for follow up or screening of ovarian cancer. In female patients having a CA-125 for very high suspicion of malignancy/ovarian cancer, only 90 (36%) of the abnormal results were caused by ovarian cancer. False-positive results were largely caused by other malignancies. The specificity of CA-125 for ovarian cancer increased with concentrations over 1000 kU/litre. Serous adenocarcinoma was found the most common malignant tumor type of the ovary (53%). In the demographic profile, ovarian cancer was found to be highest in the sikh religious group (75%) and prevalent in the middle socioeconomic status 32% (n=80).Conclusions: These results confirm the high false-positive rate and poor sensitivity and specificity associated with CA-125 and the most common tumor type. The substantial inappropriate usage of CA-125 has led to results that are useless to the clinician, have cost implications, and add to patient anxiety and clinical uncertainty.

The High Sensitivity of the Multi-Cancer Detection Test ONCOVERYX-F Offers a Promising Platform for Ovarian Cancer Screening

“…These latter results are consistent with the previous findings that CA 125-based detection performs poorly in Indian OvC patients and that this test is of dubious value, contributing only to patient anxiety and clinical uncertainty. 22 Importantly, in contrast to the results with CA 125, the performance of OncoVeryx-F remained relatively constant across both ethnic groups yielding a sensitivity and specificity of >98% in both cases. The specificity obtained in South Asian/Indian women (99.5%) was, however, marginally higher than that obtained in Caucasian women (98.3%, Figure 3 ).…”