[Medical Q&A] Is the carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA125) test exclusive to women?

Planner: Chinese Medical Association

Reviewer: Ning Yongzhong, Chief Technician, Beijing Chuiyangliu Hospital

Many people have a misunderstanding about tumor markers, believing that tumor detection items are organ-specific. For example, they believe that CA125 is a marker for ovarian cancer in women and should not be used for testing in men. In fact, this is a wrong view.

The tumor marker panel offered by the hospital includes carbohydrate antigens CA125, CA19-9, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) and squamous cell carcinoma-associated antigen (SCC). Tumor markers themselves have no gender distinction, which means that both men and women can be tested.

CA125 is a group of high-molecular glycoproteins that exist in the coelomic epithelial cells of the developing embryo and disappear a few hours after birth. Under normal circumstances, CA125 cannot enter the blood circulation, so the content of CA125 is very low in healthy people and most benign diseases. However, during the growth and metastasis of malignant tumors, and when some non-tumor diseases progress, CA125 can enter the blood circulation and various body fluids and become highly expressed.

Serum CA125 detection is often widely used in the screening, diagnosis, course monitoring, prognosis and treatment of ovarian cancer. Combining multiple tumor markers can greatly improve the diagnosis and differential diagnosis of ovarian cancer. However, studies have found that CA125 can also increase in patients with cirrhosis, acute pancreatitis, heart failure, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The concentration of CA125 in the serum of various digestive system tumors also increases to varying degrees, and the increase in the liver cancer group is the most significant. Therefore, it is also considered to be a good marker for diagnosing primary liver cancer. At the same time, serum CA125 detection helps to distinguish between benign and malignant gastrointestinal lesions. When digestive tract malignancies are accompanied by distant metastases, the increase in serum CA125 concentration is more significant.

From the above analysis, we can see that CA125 is not only used to monitor and evaluate ovarian cancer in female patients.