CA 19-9 is more useful than CA 125 in the diagnosis of ovarian malignancy, and can truly differentiate the histological subtypes of the ovarian tumours

BackgroundCA 125 is a tumour marker; commonly, used for screening ovarian malignancy. However, recent studies have proven a limited role for CA 125 as a diagnostic marker for ovarian cancer. Nevertheless; recently, a limited number of studies have demonstrated a role for CA 19-9 in the diagnosis and prognosis of malignant ovarian tumours.AimsTo evaluate the utility of CA 19-9 in the workup of suspected ovarian malignancy.Methods In this observational study, on the basis of histopathology reports of ovarian tumours, 45 patients were equally divided into three different groups namely; benign, borderline and malignant. All the patients had their serum CA 125 and CA 19-9 measured preoperatively. The data was analysed using SPSS version 16. One-way ANOVA with Turkey HSD, independent sample t-test and chi squared tests were run for the statistical analysis.Results Serum CA 125 does not predict the type of ovarian histopathology in a suspected ovarian malignancy, p>0.05. However, CA 19-9 is the highest in malignant (M=168.27±48.78,