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Highly elevated serum CA-125 levels in patients with non-malignant gynecological diseases

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Abstract

Purposes

To identify patients with highly elevated serum CA-125 levels and analyze their clinical characteristics.

Methods

Patients with non-malignant gynecologic disease (NMGDs, n = 41), in whom serum CA-125 levels were over 1,000 IU/ml were retrospectively enrolled in the study. Seventy-one patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), in whom, serum CA-125 levels were over 1,000 IU/ml were included as the comparison group. Clinical parameters were compared between the two groups.

Results

In NMGDs group, 43.90% of the patients had endometriosis. The median of serum CA-125 level in NMGDs was much lower than that of EOC subjects (P < 0.001). Compared to EOC group, the patients in NMGDs group were much younger (P < 0.001) and had fewer histories of pelvic masses (P < 0.001) but had more clinical complaints such as acute abdominal symptoms (P < 0.001) and/or abnormal vaginal bleeding (P = 0.022). Clinical progresses of these two groups were correlated with changes of serum CA-125 levels by follow-up for up to 386 days.

Conclusions

High levels of serum CA-125 were found not only in the EOC, but also in some NMGDs, especially in the reproductive patients with complaints of acute abdomen symptoms or abnormal vaginal bleeding.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by Research Grants from Key research program of Education of Zhejiang Province, China (No. 20061426) and National Science Foundation of China (No. 30700273).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Women’s Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310006, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China

    Rong-Huan He, Wei-Miao Yao & Yu-Yan Mao

  2. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Yiwu Chouzhou Hospital, Yiwu, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China

    Wu Li-Yan

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  1. Rong-Huan He
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  2. Wei-Miao Yao
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  3. Wu Li-Yan
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  4. Yu-Yan Mao
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Correspondence to Yu-Yan Mao.

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He, RH., Yao, WM., Wu, LY. et al. Highly elevated serum CA-125 levels in patients with non-malignant gynecological diseases. Arch Gynecol Obstet 283 (Suppl 1), 107–110 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-010-1717-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-010-1717-5

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