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What Does The Following Blood Test Result Indicate?
Dear doctor Greetings, My mother has asicties and did her 1St blood test ca125 was 1250 on 25jan17 . Again made ca125 test on 6feb17 was 1925 and they couldn t find tumor after pet scan and colonoscop for colon and uterus then they took biopsy from omentum on 13feb17. They said tumor malignant also malignant ascites, and she need chemotherapy but she still not start is and she has her last 3rd blood test of ca125 on 28feb17 result is 657.90 . I don t understand if really cancer or no because no and why her ca125 become less if cancer. Please advice and thank you in advance Regards,
Tue, 19 Mar 2019
Hello,
Sometimes it is hard to find the primary starting of a malignancy which seems like the situation of your mother. ca125 is often used for following up the patient who is already diagnosed for cancer. Using ca125 for initial diagnosis is rare but can be useful when the suspect of malignancy is high. It is rarely used for initial diagnosis because the results may be misleading. ca125 levels may rise not only because of malignancy but also infection, inflammation of uterus, colon, breast or diseases like endometriosis etc. ca125 levels also variates in a patient with malignancy because of the variable activity of malignant cells and also death-proliferation cycle of the malignant cells. So best we of ca125 is using it after surgery and chemotherapy to evaluate the treatment or detect recurrence.
The levels you wrote for ca125 are all high, very suspicious for malignancy, being lower than before doesn't mean it is not a malignancy. Biopsy of omentum and sampling from ascites is far more valuable. And levels of ca125 is not the concern for this situation. Primary focus and treatment is concern. You should ask the doctor if there is any information about primary malignancy and when to start treatment. Sometimes abdomen MRI can be helpful for detecting the primary focus of the malignancy if pet-scan and colonoscopy didn't give a result.
Hope I have answered your query. Let me know if I can assist you further.
Regards,
Dr. HAMZA EREN GUZEL, Radiologist
Sometimes it is hard to find the primary starting of a malignancy which seems like the situation of your mother. ca125 is often used for following up the patient who is already diagnosed for cancer. Using ca125 for initial diagnosis is rare but can be useful when the suspect of malignancy is high. It is rarely used for initial diagnosis because the results may be misleading. ca125 levels may rise not only because of malignancy but also infection, inflammation of uterus, colon, breast or diseases like endometriosis etc. ca125 levels also variates in a patient with malignancy because of the variable activity of malignant cells and also death-proliferation cycle of the malignant cells. So best we of ca125 is using it after surgery and chemotherapy to evaluate the treatment or detect recurrence.
The levels you wrote for ca125 are all high, very suspicious for malignancy, being lower than before doesn't mean it is not a malignancy. Biopsy of omentum and sampling from ascites is far more valuable. And levels of ca125 is not the concern for this situation. Primary focus and treatment is concern. You should ask the doctor if there is any information about primary malignancy and when to start treatment. Sometimes abdomen MRI can be helpful for detecting the primary focus of the malignancy if pet-scan and colonoscopy didn't give a result.
Hope I have answered your query. Let me know if I can assist you further.
Regards,
Dr. HAMZA EREN GUZEL, Radiologist
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