Roula BK, Patrick ER, Nizar C, Jean O, Maroun G, Charles S, Tarek I, Said F. Myxedema ascites with high CA-125: Case and a review of literature. World J Hepatol 2013; 5(2): 86-89 [PMID: 23646234 DOI: 10.4254/wjh.v5.i2.86]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Farhat Said, MD, Quarantaine Governmental University Medical Hospital, Beirut 961, Lebanon. saidfarhat@hotmail.com
Article-Type of This Article
Case Report
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Author contributions: All authors had access to the data and wrote the manuscript.
Correspondence to: Farhat Said, MD, Quarantaine Governmental University Medical Hospital, Beirut 961, Lebanon. saidfarhat@hotmail.com
Telephone: +961-3-636211 Fax: +961-1-443516
Received: May 19, 2012 Revised: November 16, 2012 Accepted: December 1, 2012 Published online: February 27, 2013
Abstract
Ascites appearing in a previously healthy female patient is usually ascribed to a variety of causes, among which, is a cancerous process, especially if it comes with a raised CA-125 level. Although the CA-125 antigen is present on more than 80% of malignant epithelial ovarian tissue of non-mucinous type, it is also found on both healthy and malignant cells of mesothelial and non-mesothelial origin. Myxedema ascites which is caused by hypothyroidism is a rare entity, but on the other hand is easy to treat. It is one of the differential diagnoses when the ascites is refractory to treatment and no other obvious cause can be identified. If the diagnosis is delayed, patients will frequently receive unnecessary procedures, while treatment has very good response rates and ascites resolve with serum CA-125 normalization after adequate hormonal treatment.
