Clinical significance of manganese superoxide dismutase in ovarian carcinoma

: A monoclonal antibody to manganese superoxide dismutase (Mn-SOD) was measured in patients with epithelial ovarian carcinomas. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay has been developed to detect serum Mn-SOD. With this assay, only 0.9% of the 207 healthy females tested had more than 130 ng per milliliter of serum Mn-SOD. In contrast, 37 of 62 patients (59.7%) with epithelial ovarian carcinomas showed high levels of Mn-SOD. The serum Mn-SOD increased according to the clinical stage and declined to reflect the effects of therapy. Compared with CA-125, Mn-SOD showed a less frequent false positive rate (10%) in benign gynecological diseases. The determination of Mn-SOD levels proved to be a clinically useful marker for monitoring the response to treatment and to early detection of the recurrence of epithelial ovarian carcinomas.