Elevated Levels of CA-125, Estradiol and Cortisol as Prominent Markers to Diagnose Various Stages of Endometriosis

Abstract

Endometriosis is a chronic inflammatory disease condition that affects an estimated 176 million women worldwide. The disease causes unbearable symptoms of pelvic pain and infertility that limits the quality of reproductive life of affected women. An attempt has been made to identify certain physiological and hormonal factors that may behave as reliable diagnostic markers to assess the various stages of endometriosis. It is a retrospective population-based study. Here a questionnaire-based study was conducted on females of Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar that were suffering from endometriosis. Prevalent patients were characterized in terms of their socio-demographic and clinical characteristics, including the validated infertility and chronic disease registries. Progression of the disease was not found to be affected by age and body mass index (BMI) of subjects. Concentration of blood sugar (fasting and PP), and levels of serum luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), T4 and Thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) did not change as disease progressed from stage 1 to 4. However, levels of serum estradiol, cortisol, prolactin, T3 and CA-125 increased as endometriosis progressed. There also existed a close association between CA-125, estradiol, cortisol and stages of endometriosis. Elevated levels of CA-125, estradiol and cortisol may behave as prominent diagnostic markers to assess progression of disease and to discriminate between various stages of endometriosis.

N-glycans from serum IgG and total serum glycoproteins specific for endometriosis

“…This is in agreement with another study which found no significant differences in serum levels of oestradiol and progesterone in EMS 24 . Oestradiol has been shown to increase with EMS progression 25 , but levels did not differ in EMS compared to controls 26 . Interestingly, when we have looked at the oestradiol to progesterone ratio, there was a significant increase in the EMS group.…”