inhibin as a tumor marker in postmenopausal women with ovarian malignancies

background: inhibin is a dimeric glycoprotein that has a depressive effect on the anterior hypophyse secretion. the level of this tumor marker is undetectable in menopause women. in patients with gynecological cancer, especially granulosa and epidermal-type (mucinous), ovarian cancers considerable increase in the serum level of inhibin has been reported. the increased level of inhibin has been reported in patients with recurrent ovarian cancer. methods: we measured total serum inhibin and ca125 tumor marker level in 38 postmenopausal women with pathologically confirmed ovarian cancer before and after surgery out of 51 suspected women. our control group were postmenopausal women that attended to our clinic for routine gynecologic checkup. both tumor markers were measured in these patients too. results: among 38 women with ovarian cancer, 13(34.2%) had elevated serum levels of total inhibin. among the 16 women with serous adenocarcinoma, 3 patients (18.8%) had elevated serum levels of inhibin. all the three women with granulosa cell tumor had elevated serum levels of inhibin (100%) and 3 of 4(75%) women with mucinous ovarian cancer had the same result. three out of 38 women in control group had elevated serum levels of inhibin . among all 38 patients, 6(15.7%) showed tumor recurrence, that all were concomitant with rising of both serum ca125 and inhibin levels (p=0/001). conclusions: serum inhibin level is a useful tumor marker in granulosa cell and in mucinous tumor of ovary. in this study combined inhibin and ca125 assay showed better results in early detection of ovarian cancer in comparison to either ca125 or inhibin alone.