- Ovarian cancer was the third most common gynecological cancer globally in 2020.
- High-grade serous ovarian carcinoma is the most common type of ovarian cancer.
- As there are currently no reliable screening tests for ovarian cancer, almost all cases are diagnosed at the advanced stage, lowering a woman’s survival rate.
- Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC have developed a new blood test for the detection of early-stage ovarian cancer.
- The test can reportedly distinguish between cancerous and benign pelvic masses with up to 91% accuracy.
In 2020, ovarian cancer was the third most commonTrusted Source gynecological cancer in the world.
High-grade serous ovarian carcinomaTrusted Source is the most common type of ovarian cancer, accounting for about 75% of all cases.
If detected at an early stage, the 10-year survival rateTrusted Source for high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma is about 55%.
However, almost all cases of this type of ovarian cancer are diagnosed at an advanced stage, which lowers the 10-year survival rate to 15%. That is because there is currently no reliable screening testTrusted Source available for ovarian cancer.
Now, researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) are trying to change that by developing a new blood test for the detection of early-stage ovarian cancer that can distinguish between cancerous and benign pelvic masses with up to 91% accuracy — a higher rate than that of other tests currently available.
This study recently appeared in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.
Ovarian cancer begins in the ovariesTrusted Source, fallopian tubesTrusted Source, or peritoneumTrusted Source, all of which are part of the female reproductive system.
Early symptoms of ovarian cancer — such as bloating, abdominal pain, and frequent urination — are very similar to the types of symptoms a woman has during her menstrual cycle, urinary tract infection, or irritable bowel syndrome.
For this reason, ovarian cancer is commonly misdiagnosedTrusted Source as a different condition until the symptoms worsen and do not go away.
Because the ovaries are located deep inside the abdominal cavity, it is hard for a physician to detect a tumor during a pelvic exam. Additionally, unlike other cancers, ovarian cancer normally does not spread to other parts of the body.
Currently, there is no screening test specifically for ovarian cancer. However, researchers are workingTrusted Source on resolving this issue.
“If we can detect high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma in its earlier stages, we believe outcomes will be dramatically improved for women afflicted with this disease,” Dr. Bodour Salhia, interim chair of the Department of Translational Genomics, Keck School of Medicine of USC, leader of the Epigenetics Regulation in Cancer Research Program at USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, and corresponding author of this study explained to Medical News Today.
“We focused on high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma first because it is the most lethal and frequent type and we knew that other subtypes are likely [to] need different markers, something we confirmed in this study and is likely one of the reasons other attempts to develop ovarian cancer screening tools haven’t been successful,” she added. “We plan to include other subtypes in the test and are doing that now.”
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