Clinical applications of urinary gonadotropin peptides (UGP) in gynecologic oncology

The past seven years has witnessed the development of research assays and now commercial assays for the measurement of a fragment of the beta subunit of human chorionic gonadotropin (beta-hCG). This fragment has been called the beta core fragment (beta-core), urinary gonadotropin fragment (UGF) and most recently urinary gonadotropin peptide (UGP). Clinical applications of UGP have been pursued most often but not exclusively in gynecologic oncology. This review presents evidence for a role for UGP in (1) the screening of women at high risk for ovarian cancer by virtue of their family history, (2) the differentiation of benign pelvic masses from malignant ones, particularly in premenopausal women and (3) monitoring women known to have previously been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and possibly cervical and advanced uterine cancer to determine efficacy of therapy.