Clinical significance of serum epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EPCAM) and vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) levels in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer.

Cellular adhesion molecules might be good markers in some types of malignant tumors, useful information in diagnosis and prognosis. The objective of this study was to evaluate the serum levels of epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EPCAM) and vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) patients. Fifty patients were enrolled into the study. Serum EPCAM and VCAM-1 levels were determined by the solid-phase sandwich ELISA method. Age- and sex-matched 30 healthy controls were included in the analysis. The median age of the patients was 56.5 years, range 22 to 83 years. Majority of the patients had advanced disease (stages III-IV) (90%). The baseline serum EPCAM levels of the EOC patients were significantly higher than in those in the control group (p = 0.03). However, there was no significant difference in the serum VCAM-1 level between EOC patients and controls (p = 0.24). Metastatic patients had higher serum VCAM-1 levels compared with the non-metastatic patients (p = 0.03). Moreover, no other clinical variables including response to chemotherapy were found to be correlated with both serum assays (p > 0.05). No correlation was found between serum EPCAM and VCAM-1 levels in EOC patients (r(s) = 0.105, p = 0.362). Neither serum EPCAM level nor serum VCAM-1 level had significant adverse effect on survival. In conclusion, the higher baseline serum levels of VCAM-1 were associated with metastatic disease, and serum EPCAM level was found to be a diagnostic marker in EOC patients. However, both serum assays had no prognostic roles on outcome.