Ovarian Cancer Biomarkers in the COVID-19 Era

Antonella Farina, Flavia Colaiacovo, Mariacarmela Gianfrate, Beatrice Pucci, Antonio Angeloni and Emanuela Anastasi ()
Additional contact information
Antonella Farina: Department of Experimental Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, 00161 Rome, Italy
Flavia Colaiacovo: Department of Experimental Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, 00161 Rome, Italy
Mariacarmela Gianfrate: Department of Experimental Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, 00161 Rome, Italy
Beatrice Pucci: Department of Experimental Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, 00161 Rome, Italy
Antonio Angeloni: Department of Experimental Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, 00161 Rome, Italy
Emanuela Anastasi: Department of Experimental Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, 00161 Rome, Italy

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 11, 1-11

Abstract: Ovarian Cancer (OC) diagnosis is entrusted to CA125 and HE4. Since the latter has been found increased in COVID-19 patients, in this study, we aimed to evaluate the influence of SARS-CoV-2 infection on OC biomarkers. HE4 values above the cut-off were observed in 65% of OC patients and in 48% of SARS-CoV-2-positive patients (not oncologic patients), whereas CA125 values above the cut-off were observed in 71% of OC patients and in 11% of SARS-CoV-2 patients. Hence, by dividing the HE4 levels into quartiles, we can state that altered levels of HE4 in COVID-19 patients were mostly detectable in quartile I (151–300 pmol/L), while altered levels in OC patients were mostly clustered in quartile III (>600, pmol/L). In light of these observations, in order to better discriminate women with ovarian cancer versus those with COVID-19, we established a possible HE4 cut-off of 328 pmol/L by means of a ROC curve. These results demonstrate that the reliability of HE4 as a biomarker in ovarian cancer remains unchanged, despite COVID-19 interference; moreover, it is important for a proper diagnosis that whether the patient has a recent history of SARS-CoV-2 infection is determined.

Keywords: ovarian cancer; SARS-CoV-2; tumor markers; HE4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/11/5994/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/11/5994/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:11:p:5994-:d:1158913

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().