Correlation of preoperative ROMA scores with clinical stage in epithelial ovarian cancer patients.

PURPOSE: The significance of the Risk of Ovarian Malignancy Algorithm (ROMA) in differentiating benign and malignant ovarian lesions has been evidenced. In our clinical work, we found that advanced ovarian cancer were accompanied commonly with high ROMA scores. Thus, this study aimed to clarify the performance of ROMA in different disease stage of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) prior to surgery.
METHODS: Carbohydrate antigen (CA125) and human epididymis protein 4 (HE4) levels and ROMA scores in 221 patients with FIGO stage I, II or III/IV stage EOC were analyzed. The positive rates of CA125, HE4 and ROMA at each disease stage were calculated. Their cutoff values, sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) for distinguishing patients with FIGO stage I/II from those with FIGO stage III/IV were estimated via ROC curves.
RESULTS: Serum CA125 and HE4 levels and ROMA scores rose significantly with advancing stage. ROMA and CA125 were significantly elevated more frequently in comparing with HE4 in EOC patients at with the same stage. Based on ROC curves, the cutoff values for FIGO stage III/IV EOC were 110 IU/mL, 126 pmol/L, 78 and 68% for CA125, HE4, premenopausal and postmenopausal ROMA, respectively. ROMA was the strongest predictor of FIGO stage, with the highest specificity, accuracy, and PPV, which were 84.4, 82.5, and 87.0% for postmenopausal patients, 89.3, 85.6, and 74.3% for premenopausal patients.
CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest high ROMA scores correlated with advanced ovarian cancer prior to surgery. These observations suggest potential utility of ROMA in the comprehensively preoperative evaluation of EOC patients.