By Allison Hydzik
Published online at
Clinical Cancer
Research, the researchers explain that they found genetic markers that
reliably indicate epithelial
ovarian cancer, the fifth-leading cause of cancer
death in U.S. women that is called a “silent killer” because it often isn’t
caught until it reaches advanced stages.
“Women with stage I epithelial ovarian cancer have a five-year survival
of approximately 95 percent, in stark contrast to the considerably lower
survival of only 33 percent associated with advanced stage disease,” said
senior author Xin Huang, Ph.D., assistant professor at MWRI and UPCI. “Thus,
the key to increase the overall survival of women with ovarian cancer lies in
early detection and screening.”
Using blood samples from healthy women, women with epithelial
ovarian cancer and women with endometriosis (when cells from the lining of the uterus
grow in other parts of the body and sometimes a precursor to cancer), the
researchers were able to determine which category the samples fell into.
“To our knowledge, this is the
first time this type of test has been done to detect endometriosis and
epithelial ovarian cancer,” said Dr. Huang. “Although our work is still in the
lab and is not yet able to be used in patients, it paves the way for developing
a test that doctors could use to aid in the diagnosis of endometriosis and to identify
patients at risk for developing epithelial ovarian cancer.”
This work is a collaboration between Dr. Huang, Dr. Anda Vlad, and Dr.
Robert Edwards at MWRI and several clinicians at
Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC.