The role of HE4 in differentiating benign and malignant endometrial pathology

Abstract

Objectives: The incidence of endometrial cancer is constantly growing. More aggressive types of endometrial cancer as well as the incidence in younger women is being observed. More than 80% of cases is diagnosed in early stages due to early symptoms like abnormal bleeding. The remaining 20% of asymptomatic cases of endometrial cancer as well as the cases of false negative histopathological diagnoses are mostly the incidences of serous endometrial cancer and are a true diagnostic and therapeutic challenge. This was the reason of our study in which we proposed investigation of HE4 levels as a complementary diagnostic method in management and diagnosing of EC.

Material and methods: Serum HE4 level was measured in 92 patients with abnormal vaginal bleeding. Based on histhology after curretage the study group was divided into the benign and malignant endometrial pathology groups. Statistical analysis was performed using Mann-Whitney test

Results: The difference of serum HE4 level between benign endometrial pathology and cancer was significant (p = 0.000) and the cut-off for identification of patients with endometrial cancer was 58.08 pmol/l. There was a significant difference between G2 and G3 endometrial cancer, and G1 and G3. (p = 0,4 and p = 0,008 respectively) Patients who needed lymphadenectomy had significantly higher HE4 level than those who had no indications for this procedure (p = 0,001).

Conclusions: HE4 is a useful biomarker in diagnosing endometrial cancer. HE4 is associated with high grade endometrial cancer. It can also serve as an useful preoperative counseling tool to identify patients, who may require pelvic and paraaortic lymphadenectomy.