Evaluating the clinical significances of serum HE4 with CA125 in peritoneal tuberculosis and epithelial ovarian cancer

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the clinical significances of human epididymis protein 4 (HE4) with cancer antigen 125 (CA125) in differential diagnosis between epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) and peritoneal tuberculosis (PTB). We retrospectively reviewed data of 31 patients suspected preoperatively as having EOC but whose pathological results revealed PTB. The concentrations of serum HE4 and CA125 in PTB were significantly lower than that in EOC. The optimal cutoffs to differentiate EOC from PTB were HE4 > 151.4 pmol/l and CA125 > 563.5 U/ml, which means EOC may be considered if HE4 or CA125 was greater than the cutoff, otherwise, PTB should not be neglected. Furthermore, the specificity and accuracy for differentiating PTB form EOC could be improved when combination HE4 and CA125. Conclusively, the combination of HE4 and CA125 may be recommended as potential biomarkers in the preliminary differential diagnosis of PTB from EOC before the “golden standard” of pathologic diagnosis finally obtained.

• Cancer antigen 125
• human epididymis protein 4
• ovarian cancer
• peritoneal tuberculosis

Declaration of interest

This work was supported by Tianjin Health Bureau of Science and Technology Funds (2012KZ073) and the National Natural Science Foundation (81302250). None of the authors has any potential conflicts of interest.