CA 125
CA 125 - Carcinogenic antigen 125 - test at your own risk
Tumor marker for ovarian cancer
When ordering you have to indicate at 'remarks' that you agree with sending the results to Bloodvalue Test and accept the possibility that mentally incriminating results may be found.
We can only perform the tests and give you the measured values, for further interpretation of these tests you need to turn to a medical specialist.
Tumor markersare substances, usually proteins, that the body makes in response to cancer or that are made by the cancer itself. Some tumor markers belong to one type of cancer, others are found in several types. These substances do not prove that there is a tumor: we find them also in other diseases and even in healthy people. So the result alone does not say everything. Tumor markers can help make a diagnosis, but only in combination with other tests. The substances tell a hospital a lot about the course of the disease.
The clinical significance of CA 125 is mainly monitoring (chemo) therapy in ovarian carcinoma.
What does the result mean?
The reference value for CA 125 is 35 kU/L (35 U/ml) or less. A normal value of CA 125 cannot exclude ovarian cancer.
It is important that CA 125 is always determined by the same laboratory during the follow-up of therapy. This is because there are differences between determination methods of the laboratories.
Increased
If CA 125 rises during or after treatment for ovarian cancer, it generally means that the cancer is not responding or has returned after treatment. Furthermore, CA 125 may be elevated in pregnancy and in non-malignant tumors. In people without tumors, CA 125 may be elevated with cirrhosis of the liver or inflammation of various membranes such as the peritoneum, pulmonary membrane, or pericardium.
Lowered
If CA 125 drops during treatment for ovarian cancer, it generally means that the cancer is responding to the treatment. What is important here is the speed at which the substance disappears from the blood. The faster the substance is gone from the blood after treatment, the more likely it is that the cancer is responding to treatment. However, a rapid reduction is no guarantee that the disease will return.
In the early stages, cancer is not yet recognizable as a tumor, growth or cancer. However, in the early stages it sometimes affects the composition of the blood. As more cancer cells are present, the value of the tumor marker will increase, so that the formation, growth and treatment can be monitored. A blood test can be used to obtain an indication of whether a person may develop a particular cancer form in the near future. The test is also used to monitor the impact of a particular treatment over time. Favorable treatment causes the CA 125 value to drop.
Ovarian Cancer
The CA 125 level in the blood says something about ovarian cancer in women. Normally this is found in blood, however it will have a value of less than 35 U/ml. But the values can also be increased by a pregnancy, benign tumors, cirrhosis of the liver and inflammations of the pericardium or the lungs.
It is therefore forbidden in the Netherlands to apply for these tests preventively without a doctor's referral. You can only use this test if you are already receiving a referral from, for example, a foreign doctor and you want to monitor this tumor marker in the Netherlands at your own expense. Please mention the name of the treating physician in comments during the ordering process.
