The effectiveness of Lysophosphatic acid (LPA) as a biological marker in gynecologic cancer patients / 대한산부인과학회잡지

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: LPAs are suggested as useful biological markers in early detection of ovarian carcinoma and other gynecological malignancies except breast and hematologic malignancy. We assessed the possible diagnostic role of serum LPA level in cervical, ovarian and the uterine corpus in Korean women. METHODS: The patients were enrolled in Hanyang University Hospital, Department of OB/GYN from Jan. 1999 to Jun. 2001. There were 19 ovarian carcinomas including 2 metastatic carcinomas, and 1 primary peritoneal carcinoma, 10 cervical carcinomas, 6 uterine carcinomas, 15 benign tumor as the study group and 5 healthy nulliparous women as the control group. Plasma was obtained following the centrifuge of whole blood, LPA was extracted from the plasma and the level was assessed by tandem mass spectrometry in multiple reaction mode. The quantity was measured by ratio of level of LPA and standard material, C140 LPA, in chromatogram compared with standard. The level of LPA were compared among control group, benign disease and gynecological malignancies, and also with conventional tumor markers. The statistical significance was analyzed by unpaired student-T test and McNemar test. RESULTS: The mean level of LPA and standard deviation were 7.1698 nmol/mL, 1.70 in malignancies, 4.5357 nmol/mL, 1.10 in benign disease and 5.2812 nmol/mL, 0.88 in healthy control. The level of LPA was significantly higher than in benign and control groups (p0.05). But, in cervical cancer, LPA level is more sensitive than CEA (p=0.039). CONCLUSION: The levels of LPA in cervical cancer, uterine cancer, ovarian carcinoma were significantly higher than in benign disease. Thus LPA is considered as an useful tumor marker in diagnosis and follow-up after treatment, especially in recurrent cervical carcinoma and uterine carcinoma which have no sensitive tumor markers. But further study with large number of casesfor a long period is required for clinical application in the future.