Antinuclear Antibodies (ANA) specificities.

<p>Examples of ANA-patterns of strongly positive sera staining in a cytoplasmic (A) and a speckled (B) pattern. In (C) is shown the distribution of the main types of ANA patterns as well as the signal strength in the benign and the malignant group. Strongly positive samples are almost only seen in the group with malignancy.</p

No correlation between serum-CA-125 values and the presence and intensity of ANA.

<p>The immunofluorescence score is depicted as a function of CA-125 values for the samples from benign (red symbols) and malignant cases (green symbols). Cut-off for positivity in the CA-125 test is 35 U/mL. All patients with benign ovarian tumors and epithelial ovarian cancers are included in this figure.</p

Study demographics in patients diagnosed with borderline ovarian tumor, ovarian cancer or a benign ovarian tumor.

<p>*endometrioid adenocarcinoma N = 11, Clear cell neoplasms N = 6 and carcinosarcoma N = 4.</p><p>**No significant difference for the subset of 127 matched patients with benign conditions: Median age: 64 (range 54–90).</p

Relationship between ANA-staining intensity and histological grade of tumor (high, moderate, and poorly differentiated).

<p>While grading had no significant relationship with ANA-positivity of any specificity the presence of a speckled ANA pattern was significantly correlated with moderate-poor differentiation grade when compared with highly differentiated tumors (p = 0.04).</p

The frequency of different Antinuclear Antibodies (ANA)-patterns in sera from patients with epithelial ovarian cancer and benign pelvic conditions.

<p>Fisher's exact test was used to obtain <i>p</i>-values. Some sera contain ANAs of more than one specificity. Centr., centromere; Nuclear membr., nuclear membrane; Homog., homogeneous; cytopl., cytoplasmic; NS, non significant.</p