Background: Ovarian cancer is one of the most serious genital cancer in women. Pre-operative differentiation of adnexal mass is important for appropriate diagnosis and immediate referral to oncology centers for optimal surgical intervention.
Aim of the work: To evaluate the risk of malignancy preoperatively in patients presented with adnexal mass for referral of patients with suspected malignancy to tertiary center, which may improve survival.
Patients and methods: In this study, 140 women with adnexal mass were included (benign lesions 80 and malignant tumors 60), the performance of ultrasound criteria and subjective assessment was excellent in the differentiation between benign lesions and malignant tumors.
Results: CA 125 values (with Cut off >111 (U/ml) and AUC of CA125 level (U/ml) was 0.860 (p < 0.001) had excellent and high ability to predict malignant tumors with sensitivity 70.0% and had a higher probability of actually having a histologically malignant tumor. AUC of IL-6 level (pg/ml) was 0.813 (p < 0.001) with Cut off >45 had excellent and high ability to predict malignant tumors with sensitivity 60.0%. Combining CA 125 with IL-6 level (pg/ml) had excellent and high ability to predict malignant tumors with Sensitivity 88.33%.
Conclusion: Our data shows that serum IL-6 level is excellent for distinguishing ovarian cancer patients from those with benign lesions. The serum values of these cytokines can be analysed separately or associated with CA 125 which could be used to reinforce confidence in the differentiation of malignant ovarian masses from other ovarian masses.