Ovarian cancer test could detect disease earlier than current methods

New tests may detect ovarian cancer earlier than existing diagnostic tools.

Epithelial ovarian cancer, which accounts for 90 percent of ovarian cancer cases, is one of the deadliest cancers, and only 30 percent of those with the disease survive five years or more after diagnosis.

One reason is that epithelial ovarian cancer is asymptomatic for most of its course, so by the time you see a doctor, it is already in an advanced stage.

A blood test for a protein called CA125 is used to diagnose ovarian cancer, but it does not always detect it reliably. A pilot mass screening program of more than 200,000 women in the United Kingdom failed to significantly reduce ovarian cancer deaths.

To develop a better test, Pan Wang of Peking University, China, and his colleagues studied uterine cancer from 219 women with cancer, including early-stage ovarian cancer, late-stage ovarian cancer, benign ovarian cancer, and endometrial cancer. water was taken. Uterine fluid contains cells and metabolites or metabolites from the ovaries and fallopian tubes.

The researchers used a chemical analyzer called a mass spectrometer to test the body fluids of 96 women, looking for metabolites whose levels were markedly different from those in patients with early-stage ovarian cancer. They identified a group of seven of her metabolites, including the amino acids tyrosine and phenylalanine, which can be used diagnostically.

Body fluids from the remaining 123 women were then tested for these seven metabolites and tested for CA125. The new test accurately identified most early-stage ovarian cancer patients and performed significantly better than her CA125 test in diagnosing early-stage ovarian cancer.

Eric Eisenhower of Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital said the results were promising, but the test needs to be tested in more people. “There has been no effective nonsurgical test for early-stage ovarian cancer for more than 50 years,” he says. “Most of the early detection tests currently available have difficulty identifying ovarian cancer when it is still in its early stages. We hope this profile will be validated in larger future datasets.” But this first report shows great promise.”

Sujata Sharma, of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, said the study did not include people without cancer as comparisons, altering their metabolite profiles in a similar fashion. He noted that other diseases may be present.