Niemi RJ, et al. – This study is performed to explore the effects of the urinary polyamines as biomarkers for ovarian cancer. Urinary N¹,N¹²–diacetylspermine appears to be able to distinguish benign and malignant ovarian tumors and also early and advanced stage, and low malignant potential and high–grade ovarian cancers from each other, respectively.

Methods

• For this research, they designed prospective study.
• This was the study of postmenopausal women (n = 71) presenting with an adnexal mass and, as controls, women with genital prolapse or urinary incontinence scheduled for surgery (n = 22) were enrolled in the study.
• For investigation of the polyamines, a morning urine sample was obtained before surgery.
• Preoperative serum CA125 concentrations were determined in the study group.

Results

• In this study, they found 23 women with benign and 37 with malignant ovarian tumors were qualified.
• Of all examined polyamines, only urinary N1,N12–diacetylspermine demonstrated statistically major differences between all groups except controls versus benign tumors.
• N1,N12–diacetylspermine was raised in malignant versus benign tumors (P < 0.001), and even in early-stage cancer (stage I–II) versus benign tumors (P = 0.017).
• N1,N12–diacetylspermine had better sensitivity (86.5%) but lower specificity (65.2%) for distinguishing benign and malignant ovarian tumors than CA125 with a cut–off value of 35 kU/L (sensitivity, 75.7%; specificity, 69.6%).