Clinician FAQs

• The ROCA Test is a simple blood test that determines the likelihood of a woman having ovarian cancer. The test uses a woman’s age, menopausal status, risk status and serial blood measurements of CA-125 over time to produce a score that indicates her likelihood of having ovarian cancer.
• It is the only ovarian cancer test that has been evaluated in major clinical trials and shown to be significantly more sensitive and specific than alternative methods.
• The ROCA Test is for women between 35 and 83 years of age who have a confirmed mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene.

The ROCA Test differs from a standard CA-125 in that is does not use a fixed cut-off level of 35U/ml but instead uses an algorithm-based method to assess the significance of any change in the baseline level of CA125 to predict the risk of having ovarian cancer. The algorithm compares a woman’s serial CA-125 profile to a proprietary database of known CA-125 profiles (with and without cancer). The more a woman’s profile correlates with known profiles of ovarian cancer, the greater her risk. The algorithm also uses age, menopausal status and whether a woman is high risk for ovarian cancer as factors.

The ROCA Test reports a numerical score that represents a woman’s risk of having ovarian cancer (e.g. 1 in 3,000). The risk score is categorised as Normal, Intermediate or Elevated and clinical recommendations as guidance for clinical follow up.

The ROCA Test is a first line test and should not be used to refer a patient directly to surgery. The test results will either refer a patient to a repeat ROCA Test, or a transvaginal ultrasound scan of the ovaries, the results of which are interpreted by expert clinical assessment.