HOW CA-125 IS USED IN THE ROUTINE FOLLOW-UP OF OVARIAN-CANCER - A SURVEY OF 29 ITALIAN HOSPITALS

Tumor markers are currently monitored on a routine basis, However, the ir impact on the course of a disease is still under debate, This relat ive uncertainty leads to a subjective approach to their use, In order to evaluate the range in the pattern of tumor marker application we ca rried out a survey on the follow-up of patients with ovarian, breast, and colorectal carcinomas, This report concerns only ovarian cancer, P reliminary results showed that the number of markers used, the cutoff point and, probably of major importance, the management of patients wi th positive tumor marker vary considerably, When evaluating the instit utional setting of the surveyed hospitals, a relatively poor interacti on between clinicians and the laboratory staff was found, Actually, in about half of the investigated centers, clinical information is not p rovided to the laboratory staff and methodological aspects are not rep orted to clinicans, too, The first step to increase the effectiveness of tumor markers is to improve cooperation between persons assaying th e markers and those using them, This is a mandatory task in order to b oth enable the application of recommendations provided by guidelines a nd to provide the means to verify their rate of acceptance.