The role of β2 microglobulin, transferin and CA 125 in the diagnosis of women with ovarian tumors

BACKGROUND: Ovarian cancer (OC) is a disease with a high mortality rate- in Europe it is 3.6 to 9.3 per 100,000 women. The most commonly used tests for diagnosing and monitoring the disease are transvaginal ultrasonography (TVUS) and levels of the carcinoma antigen CA 125. In the present study, we identified three plasma proteins transferrin (TFR), β2 microglobulin (β2MG) and carcinoma antigen CA 125. Our aim is to determine what changes occur in the concentration of these proteins in women with ovarian tumors; to determine how significant the change in each of them is in the differential diagnosis of OC and benign ovarian disease and to see if we can use them upon detection of OC.METHODS: This is a prospective study covering the period January 1st, 2020 to December 31st, 020, in which 180 women participated; 120 of them had a proven ovarian tumor, 60 were healthy controls. Of the 120 detected with an ovarian tumor, 60 were OC, the remaining 60 with an ovarian cyst were histologically proven. We evaluated the diagnostic reliability (DR) of each of the three studied proteins independently and in different combinations between them in detecting ovarian tumor formation and proving OC among the Bulgarian population.RESULTS: We found that the DR of CA 125 was superior to the DR of the various combinations between the three plasma proteins we identified, both for the diagnosis of ovarian tumors, and for distinguishing OC from benign ovarian disease, and for proving OC.CONCLUSIONS: We believe that these three plasma proteins may be involved in the development of an assay or algorithm to provide a more accurate and simplified approach to assessing the risk of ovarian cancer in cases of ovarian tumors.