Efficacy of IOTA simple rules, O-RADS, and CA125 to distinguish benign and malignant adnexal masses

OBJECTIVE: Ovarian cancer is the most deadly deadliest gynecological tumor in the female reproductive system. Therefore, the present study sought to determine the diagnostic performance of International Ovarian Tumor Analysis Simple Rules (IOTA SR), the Ovarian-Adnexal Reporting and Data System (O-RADS), and Cancer Antigen 125 (CA125) in discriminating benign and malignant ovarian tumors. The study also assessed whether a combination of the two ultrasound categories systems and CA125 can improve the diagnostic performance. METHODS: A total of 453 patients diagnosed with ovarian tumors were retrospectively enrolled from Fujian Cancer Hospital between January 2017 and September 2020. The data collected from patients included age, maximum lesion diameter, location, histopathology, levels of CA125, and detailed ultrasound reports. Additionally, all ultrasound images were independently assessed by two ultrasound physicians with more than 5 years of experience in the field, according to the IOTA simple rules and O-RADS guidelines. Furthermore, the area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity, and specificity of the above mentioned predictors were calculated using the receiver operating characteristic curve. RESULTS: Out of the 453 patients, 184 had benign lesions, while 269 had malignant ovarian tumors. In addition, the AUCs of IOTA SR, O-RADS, and CA125 in the overall population were 0.831, 0.804, and 0.812, respectively, and the sensitivities of IOTA SR, O-RADS, and CA125 were 94.42, 94.42, and 80.30%, respectively. On the other hand, the AUCs of IOTA SR combined with CA125, O-RADS combined with CA125, and IOTA SR plus O-RADS combined with CA125 were 0.900, 0.891, and 0.909, respectively. The findings also showed that the AUCs of a combination of the three approaches were significantly higher than those of individual strategies (p<0.05) but not significantly higher than the AUC of a combination of two methods (p>0.05). CONCLUSION: The findings showed that a combination of IOTA SR or O-RADS in combination with CA125 may improve the ability to distinguish benign from malignant ovarian tumors. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13048-022-00947-9.