Abstract: Objective : To investigate the changes of serum activin A and follistatin concentrationsand the value of diagnosis in postmenopausal women with epithelial ovarian neoplasms. Methods :Serum activin A and follistatin levels in postmenopausal women with epithelial ovarian neoplasms (48cases of epithelial ovarian carcinomas, 12 cases of borderline cystadenomas, 30 cases of benign tumors)and 40 healthy postmenipausal women as controls were determined by enzyme linked immunosorbentassay (ELISA), also the change of preoperative and postoperative serum activin A and follistatin levelsof 25 cases of epithelial ovarian cancer were observed. Results : Women with epithelial ovarian cancerhad significantly higher serum levels of activin A (P<0.001),but not follistatin (P=0.15),than patients with benign tumor and normal controls. Using the ⁹⁰th Gentile in the control group as the cut off ,activinA was elevated in 72.2% of women with epithelial ovarian cancer, while follistatin was elevated in11.2%. Serum activin A were significantly elevated in advanced stage (1.02+0.81ng/ml) and poorly dif-ferentiated (1.01+0.63mg/ml)compared with early staged (0.79+0.55ng/ml) and well differentiated (0.8610.65ng/ml). But there is no significant difference between activin A level and pathological types(P>0.05).The postoperative serum activin A levels (0.59+0.32ng/ml) were significantly lower than thatin preoperative(1.01+0.57ng/ml). Conclusion : These data demonstrate that activin A is more commonlyelevated than follistatin in postmenopausal women with epithelial ovarian cancer and its role as a tumormarker in the diagnosis and screening of epithelial ovarian cancer warrants further evaluation.