In this study clinical studies were conducted on
galactosyltransferase associated with tumour (
GAT) as a newly developed marker of
ovarian cancers. The positive rates of
GAT with a cut-off value of 16 U/ml (which corresponds to the mean + 2 standard deviations (S.D.) for healthy females) were 4.7% for benign ovarian tumours, 4.5% for
endometriosis and 45.9% for
ovarian cancers.
GAT showed a positive rate comparable to that of CA546 or CA72-4 among other tumour markers (
CA602, CA125, CA546, CA72-4, STN and SLX) examined in
ovarian cancers. However, it showed lower positive rates for benign
ovarian diseases and, in particular, it gave the lowest positive rate for
endometriosis among the aforementioned tumour markers. Furthermore, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis for discriminating between
ovarian cancer and
endometriosis showed a significantly high area under the curve (AUC) for
GAT compared with that of the other markers.
GAT showed the lowest correlation coefficients with other markers, and the positive rate and the diagnostic efficiency were increased by its combination assay with
CA602 and/or CA546. Furthermore, the accuracy of the diagnosis of
ovarian cancer improved by examining
GAT after screening with
CA602 or ultrasonography. These results suggest that
GAT is a suitable marker for distinguishing
ovarian cancers from benign gynaecological diseases, particularly
endometriosis, and is useful for combination assay or secondary screening for
ovarian cancers.