Serum Levels of Cytokeratin-19 in Epithelial Ovarian Cancer

Malignant cells generally retain the intermediate filaments of their progenitor cell type and consequently cytokeratins have been used to characterize tumor cells (TC) of epithelial origin. Circulating TC may result in metastasis and therefore have a major impact on patient prognosis. Increased levels of soluble cytokeratin 19 (CK-19) fragments have been reported as a marker of tumor mass and lymph node involvement. The aim of the study was to evaluate the clinical usefulness of the serum levels CK-19 ELISA, which uses the same MoAb pairs as in the CYFRA 21–1 test, and supposed to detect circulating CK-19 positive TC in the peripheral blood derived from patients with epithelial ovarian cancers (EOC). Forty-six women with FIGO stages I to IV EOC and 24 women with bening ovarian cysts (BOC) were enrolled. Pretreatment serum levels of CK-19 were retrospectively measured by CK-19 ELISA (Boehringer Mannheim, Germany; No. 1 865 536). The pretreatment serum CK-19 levels were higher in women with EOC than in those with BOC (P = 0.001 and P