D-dimer as a tumor marker in pre-operative assessment of adnexal masses.

OBJECTIVE To determine the sensitivity, specificity, and predictive value ofserum D-dimer testing in preoperative assessment of adnexal masses. MATERIAL AND METHOD D-dimer levels were measured pre-operatively in 200 women diagnosed with adnexal masses who underwent surgical treatment at Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital between June 2007 and May 2008. The CA-125 level was also recorded RESULTS When using cut-off value at 500 ng/ml, D-dimer has 91.8% sensitivity, 71.9% specificity, 58.9% PPV and 95.2% NPV of the tests in differentiating benign from malignant adnexal masses, compared with CA-125, which had 75.4%, 73.0%, 59.7%, and 84.8% respectively (cut-off 65 U/ml). Furthermore, the likelihood ratio to be negative ofD-dimer test is high at 0.11. In patients with epithelial ovarian cancer, D-dimer is increased in 83% of early stage (stage 1) ovarian cancer while only 39% of early stage patients have CA-125 level above cut-off value. CONCLUSION D-dimer could be a useful test in pre-operative assessment of adnexal masses. In this study D-dimer seems to be better than CA-125 in diferentiating benign from malignant adnexal tumors.