Clinical Applicability of Tissue Polypeptide Antigen and CA-125 in Gynecological Malignancies

Background: Nowadays there still is no sufficient screening tool for ovarian and uterine cancer. Objective: The current study aimed to investigate whether cancer antigen 125 (CA-125), tissue polypeptide antigen (TPA) or the combination of both markers are able to act as screening tools for ovarian or uterine cancer. Methods: A total of 275 blood samples from different cohorts (ovarian cancer, uterine cancer, benign control group) were prospectively drawn and analyzed. Results: Established biomarkers TPA and CA-125 showed elevated serum concentrations in patients with malignant tumors as compared to healthy women and women with benign diseases. In ROC curve analyses, both biomarkers were well able to discriminate between malignant and healthy, benign or overall non-malignant cases in the whole sample, with AUCs of 0.842 and above. While TPA was the best diagnostic marker in patients with uterine cancer, CA 125 was the best in patients with ovarian cancer. Conclusions: TPA and CA-125 both showed promising results for the detection of gynecologic malignancies. The combination of CA-125 and TPA did not improve sensitivity in comparison to single markers.