Table 1.

Current ovarian cancer biomarkers and their clinical utility.

Clinical Biomarker	Source	Clinical Role			Clinical Utility	Reference
		Diagnosis	Prognosis	Cancer Therapy
Carbohydrate Antigen 125 (CA125)	Serum	✓	✓		Screen for ovarian cancer; evaluate the chemotherapy response and monitor disease recurrence using ELISA.	[12,13,14,15]
Osteopontin (OPN)	Plasma	✓	✓		Diagnosis of ovarian cancer and prognostic indicator of metastasis using PCR and ELISA.	[16,17]
Kallikreins (KLKs)	Serum	✓			Diagnosis of ovarian cancer using ELISA.	[17,18,19,20,21]
Bikunin	Serum		✓		Predict the stage of the disease and the survival rate preoperatively using ELISA or immunoblot assay.	[22,23,24,25]
Human Epididymis Protein 4 (HE4)	Serum	✓			High-sensitivity diagnostic tool for detecting stage I ovarian cancer using ELISA.	[26,27,28]
Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF)	Serum	✓	✓	✓	Indicator of a shorter survival time in patients with ovarian cancers using ELISA.	[29,30,31,32]
Prostasin (PSN)	Serum	✓			Identify patients with ovarian cancer through RT-PCR.	[33,34]
Creatine Kinase B (CKB)	Serum		✓		Predict survival rate and prognosis of ovarian cancer using microarray technology.	[35]
Mesothelin	Serum			✓	Detected using ELISA method and used clinically as an antimesothelin immunotoxin therapy to attack cancer cells in combination with standard chemotherapy.	[36,37,38]
Apolipoprotein A-I (apoA-I)	Plasma	✓			Detected clinically using ELISA method to confirm diagnosis with ovarian cancer.	[39,40,41,42]
Transthyretin (TTR)	Serum	✓			Diagnosis of early stage ovarian cancer patients using matrix-assisted laser desorption-ionisation (MALDI).	[43]
Transferrin	Serum	✓			Used in combination with CA125 as an improved and sensitive ovarian cancer detection method estimated by measurements of the serum total iron-binding capacity (TIBC).	[44,45]