Change and its clinical significance of serum level of human epididymis secretory protein 4 in elderly patients with epithelial ovarian cancer / 中华老年医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the change and clinical significance of the serum level of human epididymis secretory protein 4 (HE4) in elderly patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC).Methods The serum levels of HE4 were determined by ELISA in EOC patients (n= 33), benign ovarian disease patients ( n = 17) and healthy women ( n = 20), all of them aged 60 years or over. And there were other 31 EOC patients and 20 healthy women aged less than 60 years at the same period as controls. Results In healthy people, the serum level of HE4 was higher in the group with age ≥60 years than with age ＜60 years [(32.25± 13. 15) pmol/L vs. (24.59±8.60) pmol/L]. The serum HE4 level had a positive correlation with age (r=0. 525, P＜0.01). The median level of HE4 was significantly higher in elderly EOC patients than in benign ovarian disease patients (81.50 pmol/L vs.45.60 pmol L, U=168.5, P＜0.05) and healthy women (81.50 pmol L vs. 33.30 pmol L, U=76.5, P＜0. 01). The HE4 had a significantly higher area under ROC curve when compared with CA125 (0. 799 vs. 0. 782), while the cut-off value was set 65.43 pmol L with a sensibility and specificity of 66.67% and 86.49% respectively. The diagnostic efficacy of HE4 was higher than CA125. There was no significantly statistical difference between elderly and non-elderly EOC patients in serum HE4 levels (U= 101.2, P＞0. 05). Conclusions Age is an important factor which can affect human serum level of HE4. HE4 determination is helpful in the diagnosis of ovarian epithelial carcinoma in the elderly patients, and the combined detection of HE4 and CA125 is an useful adjuvant diagnostic measure.