CLINICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF A NEWLY DEVELOPED OVARIAN TUMOR-MARKER, GALACTOSYLTRANSFERASE ASSOCIATED WITH TUMOR (GAT)

In this study clinical studies were conducted on galactosyltransferase associated with tumour (GAT) as a newly developed marker of ovarian c ancers. The positive rates of GAT with a cut-off value of 16 U/ml (whi ch corresponds to the mean + 2 standard deviations (S.D.) for healthy females) were 4.7% for benign ovarian tumours, 4.5% for endometriosis and 45.9% for ovarian cancers. GAT showed a positive rate comparable t o that of CA546 or CA72-4 among other tumour markers (CA602, CA125, CA 546, CA72-4, STN and SLX) examined in ovarian cancers. However, it sho wed lower positive rates for benign ovarian diseases and, in particula r, it gave the lowest positive rate for endometriosis among the aforem entioned tumour markers. Furthermore, the receiver operating character istic (ROC) analysis for discriminating between ovarian cancer and end ometriosis showed a significantly high area under the curve (AUC) for GAT compared with that of the other markers. GAT showed the lowest cor relation coefficients with other markers, and the positive rate and th e diagnostic efficiency were increased by its combination assay with C A602 and/or CA546. Furthermore, the accuracy of the diagnosis of ovari an cancer improved by examining GAT after screening with CA602 or ultr asonography. These results suggest that GAT is a suitable marker for d istinguishing ovarian cancers from benign gynaecological diseases, par ticularly endometriosis, and is useful for combination assay or second ary screening for ovarian cancers. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.