European Journal of Gynaecological Oncology (EJGO) is published by IMR Press from Volume 40 Issue 1 (2019). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with S.O.G.
Serum progesterone, estradiol-17β and testosterone at the time of relapse in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer
Raised levels of steroid hormones may be detected in women with ovarian cancer at the time of diagnosis. The goal of this study was to investigate the levels of progesterone, testosterone and estradiol-17β in patients with relapsed epithelial ovarian cancer. We studied 52 patients with a histologic diagnosis of ovarian cancer; 46 of 52 patients were affected by epithelial tumors, two patients had sexcord-stromal tumors, one patient had a germ cell tumor and three patients had a metastatic cancer from the bowel. Of 34 patients with disease relapse, none had elevated serum testosterone levels (>1 ng/mL), one patient (2.9%) had an elevated serum progesterone level (>1.24 ng/mL) and two patients (5.9%) had elevated estradiol-170 levels (>28 pg/mL). The relationship between the three hormone levels at the time of initial treatment and at relapse was tested using the Students’s t-test. At the time of initial treatment venous concentrations of progesterone, estradiol-170 and testosterone were higher and statistically different (p < 0.05) from samples obtained at the time of relapse in the same patients. No significant differences were found between patients studied at the time of relapse and the control group. Measurement of progesterone, estradiol-17β and testosterone is not helpful in detecting disease relapse in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer.