Antibodies of ovarian antigens in different diseases of the ovary.

Using the test of antiglobulin serum consumption against the human ovarian antigen, investigations were conducted on the presence of antiovarian antibodies in the blood serum of 432 women with different diseases of the ovary and 50 healthy women as control group. Autoantibodies were found in 12 of 172 patients with inflammatory lesions of the ovary (7.0%), in 18 of 118 patients with ovarian failure (15.3%), and in 21 of 65 patients with malignancies of the ovary (32.3%). No autoantibodies were detected in any of the healthy women from the control group, in any of the 10 patients with tuberculosis of the adnexa, or in any of the 67 women operated upon for benign neoplasms of the ovary. The authors formulate the suppression that there may be a correlation between the occurrence of autoantibodies, lesions of the ovarian tissue, and the malignancy of the neoplastic process.