Serum progesterone, estradiol-17 beta 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 can cer at the time of diagnosis. The goal of this study was to investigate the levels of progesterone, testosterone and estradiol-17 beta in patients wit h relapsed epithelial ovarian cancer. We studied 52 patients with a histolo gic diagnosis of ovarian cancer; 46 of 52 patients were affected by epithel ial 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 3 4 patients with disease relapse, none had elevated serum testosterone level s (>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-17 beta 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, es tradiol-17 beta and testosterone were higher and statistically different (p <0.05) from samples obtained at the time of relapse in the same patients. N o significant differences were found between patients studied at the time o f relapse and the control group. Measurement of progesterone, estradiol-17 beta and testosterone is not help ful in detecting disease relapse in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer .