Hi There,
I wonder if her CA 125 is reflecting tumor presence or if the elevation is due to something else.
A Stage I cancer means that the cancer was confined to the ovary. In that case, chemotherapy is given to theorectically prevent a recurrence. It is not given because we are trying to kill cancer cells that are there.
Therefore in your mother's case, I wonder about two things:
could she not have a stage I cancer? Is there cancer in the omentum or in the lymph nodes that was missed at surgery? You will have to ask her doctor about that. Is she being taken care of by a gyn oncologist? There are situations where women are operated on by general gynecologists or surgeon and then are sent to medical oncologists for chemo. They may not get comprehensive surgical staging in that case.
My other thought is that if she did have comprehensive surgical staging an there is no evidence of tumor outside the ovary, then the CA 125 is elevated for non cancer reasons such as heart disease, inflammatory conditions such as gallbladder disease, diverticulitis, etc, or liver disease.
You should ask her doctor about these issues
best wishes
Dear Dr. Goodman
Thank you for your reply. My mother was diagnosed as stage IC because her doctor found some cancer on the surface of left ovary and there was some cancer orgn on the omentum of the vigina. Her doctor is a gy oncologist and she is taking caring of my mother including the surgury and current chemo. I hope the surgical staging is complete, because they did not find anything abnormal before the second chemo, except CA125. My mother has hypertension for several years, but no any inflammatory conditions. I feel that maybe we still need to wait for another chemo to see its effect because it is too early to say for the first chemo. Is it right?
Thanks again for your time and I really appreciate.