Los Angeles Times Examines Efforts To Develop Successful Screening Test For Ovarian Cancer

Main Category: Ovarian Cancer
Article Date: 22 Oct 2008 - 12:00 PDT

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The Los Angeles Times on Monday examined efforts among ovarian cancer researchers to develop a test for the disease that would allow doctors to diagnose and treat it in its early, curable stages. Although ovarian cancer is not a common disease, "it is far more worrisome than its prevalence would indicate" because the majority of women who are diagnosed with ovarian cancer are diagnosed in later stages of the disease, the Times reports. About 22,000 cases of ovarian cancer occur in the U.S. each year, and a woman's lifetime risk of the disease is one in 70 -- compared with a lifetime risk of one in eight for breast cancer. The mortality rate for ovarian cancer has stayed essentially the same over the last decade while the risk of dying from breast cancer has improved significantly. The five-year survival rate for ovarian cancer increased from 38% in the late 1970s to the current rate of 46%. The five-year survival rate for breast cancer increased from 75% to 89% during the same period, the Times reports.

Researchers have been working to develop an early screening test similar to Pap smears for detection of cervical cancer. Although cervical cancer has known precursors, if "ovarian cancer has similar precursors, they are hidden in the ovaries, and medicine hasn't learned how to get at them for routine screening," the Times reports. As a result, doctors diagnose less than 20% of women in the first stages of ovarian cancer, when it can be cured 95% of the time, according to Robert Morgan, an oncologist and researcher at the City of Hope National Medical Center.

The only available test for ovarian cancer is called the CA125 blood test, which measures a protein found in greater concentration in cancerous ovarian cells than normal ovarian cells. The protein does not appear in all women with ovarian cancer, and the test therefore is "not specific enough" as a screening method. When combined with ultrasounds of the ovaries, the blood test can be useful for women at high risk of ovarian cancer, those with a family history of the disease, women who carry the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene, or those who have had breast cancer. The test often is limited to monitoring women who know they have ovarian cancer as a way to measure how well chemotherapy is controlling its spread, the Times reports.

According to the Times, an early detection test called OvaSure, developed by LabCorp, became available in June, although it has not been approved by FDA. The Society of Gynecologic Oncologists stated in July that more research into the test is needed, and FDA in September issued a letter to LabCorp stating that the company does need to receive agency permission to market the test. The discussion is pending, according to the Times (Brink [1], Los Angeles Times, 10/20).

The Times on Monday also profiled how some ovarian cancer researchers are looking more closely at the symptoms exhibited by women diagnosed with the cancer. According to the Times, researchers have found some "subtle differences" in symptoms that "may help women know when they should press doctors for a closer medical look." Researchers have found that the majority of women who are diagnosed with ovarian cancer are showing early gynecological symptoms more often than women without the cancer, the Times reports (Brink [2], Los Angeles Times, 10/20).

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