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 surveillance test that has been endorsed by NICE and has been evaluated in major prospective clinical trials. These studies show it to be sensitive in detecting ovarian cancer before the presentation of symptoms and can detect more early stage disease than no surveillance.

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. It is also the only test for surveillance with demonstrated accuracy, as assessed by NICE (CG241).

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.