Evaluation of clinical evidence for the use of HE4 in diagnosis of ovarian cancer (OC)

Ovarian cancer(OC) is the sixth most common cancer in women and the first cause of death between gynecologic malignancies. The 75% of OCs are diagnosed at an advanced stage and no effective prevention is performed. Among the wide spectrum of genomic and immunohistochemical studies on OC biomarkers only Human Epididymis 4 (HE4) seems could improve OC diagnosis if co-detected with CA125. However only few studies on diagnostic accuracy are published and thus a review of available studies for this biomarker should be critical to assess its clinical validity and efficacy. According to available studies no reliable evidences emerged supporting the clinical introduction of this marker, and neither the single nor the parallel marker detection improves the rule out for early and overall OCs.