Serum CA-125 levels were estimated in hematological malignancies
(non-Hodgkin lymphoma(NHL),Hodgkin disease (HD),acute lymphoblastic leukemia
(ALL) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML) to elucidate the frequency of elevation in
these patients.Immunophenotypes were analyzed for(all patients with acute leukemia
and 38 patients with NI-1L ).All patients with acute leukemia showed normal levels of
CA-125 with no significant difference when compared to the control group
(P>0.05),while all patients with HD showed elevation of CA-125 values with highly
significant difference when compared to the control group (P<0.01).0n the other
hand,out of the 51 patients with NHL evaluated at diagnosis (median CA-125:209
U/m1;range ,42-548.8U/m1),22 (43.1%) had increased CA-125 values .Higher CA-
125 levels were significantly associated with advanced disease (P<0.05) and highly
significant association with aggressive histology ,abdominal involvement ,high tumor
burden,bone marrow infiltration ,effusion and high lactate dehydrogenase
(LDH)activity.Of the patients presenting with abnormal CA-1251evels ,all those who
achieved complete remission CR(11)had normalization of CA-125 values by the end
of the treatment with no significant difference when compared to the control group
(P>0.05).Conversely,CA-125 remained above normal values in (4) non
responders.These results demonstrate that serum CA-125 is a reliable biologic marker
for the staging and re-staging of patients with NHL .Serial measurement are useful in
conjunction with other markers ,for monitoring response to treatment. |
