Abstract

Significantly elevated serum concentrations of lipid-associated sialic acid (LSA) were observed in 183 patients with invasive cervical carcinoma, 31 with uterine corpus adenocarcinoma and 71 with epithelial ovarian carcinoma prior to any treatment when compared with 50 normal control women (P < 0.05). Elevated LSA levels were also observed in five women with microinvasive cervical carcinoma and in four patients with uterine corpus leiomyosarcoma (P < 0.05). By contrast there were no significant elevations of serum LSA levels in 12 cases of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, 32 of uterine corpus leiomyoma, 52 of benign ovarian cyst and 14 of mature ovarian teratoma when compared with normal control women. If the upper limit of the normal serum LSA concentration is set at 20 mg 100 ml⁻¹, uterine corpus malignancy was distinguished from benign uterine corpus tumor with a sensitivity of 71% and a specificity of 94%; and ovarian malignancies were distinguished from benign ovarian masses with a sensitivity of 82% and a specificity of 85%. The positive predictive values of LSA assays in uterine and ovarian masses were 93% and 85%, respectively, whilst the negative predictive values were 75% and 81%, respectively. The sensitivity of LSA assays in cervical carcinoma was 57%. The present study suggests that serum LSA assays may be useful for the detection of gyncological malignancies.