COMMENT & CONTROVERSY

Ovarian cancer screening can target high-risk women

“Don’t screen for ovarian Ca—but do pursue early detection,” by Robert L. Barbieri, MD

As Dr. Barbieri points out, the combined use of ultrasonography and CA-125 as a screening test is not cost-effective and would lead to many unnecessary interventions. But this observation is true only if you perform the test on every patient regardless of risk. Serial CA-125 levels using the established Risk of Ovarian Cancer Algorithm (ROCA) improves specificity to 99.7% and positive predictive value to 13%, according to the ROCA Screening Study Group, in a study¹ presented at this year’s meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. That study defined “high-risk” as:

OBG Management ©2007 Quadrant HealthCom Inc.