Technology To Improve Accuracy Of Ovarian Cancer Diagnosis

Main Category: Ovarian Cancer
Also Included In: Medical Devices / Diagnostics;  IT / Internet / E-mail
Article Date: 22 May 2009 - 0:00 PDT

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Moffitt Cancer Center and Frantz BioMarkers, LLC have signed a license agreement on phospholipid biomarkers of ovarian cancer. Frantz BioMarkers, which has been granted exclusive worldwide rights to Moffitt's interests in the biomarkers, will pay initiation, developmental milestone and license maintenance fees, and royalties on sales. Moffitt and Frantz BioMarkers will collaborate on ovarian cancer biomarker research, combining use of these licensed markers with lipid markers developed independently by Frantz BioMarkers.

Each year, 26,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and 16,000 die of the disease. There is no effective screening tool or method for accurate diagnosis without surgery. Even among symptomatic women, surgery is the only reliable way to distinguish between benign and malignant disease. It is estimated that up to 5 percent of women in the United States will undergo surgery for a suspected ovarian neoplasm. More than two-thirds of women undergoing surgery for suspected ovarian malignancy do not have cancer.

The only clinical blood biomarker available for diagnosis is CA125, which is unreliable, especially for accurate diagnosis at an early stage when a cure is feasible. Researchers at Moffitt and Frantz BioMarkers discovered that when CA125 is combined with selected phospholipids, the diagnostic accuracy for early stage ovarian cancer can significantly improve. More than 2,200 women donated blood samples for the research through the Tampa Bay Ovarian Cancer Coalition, a collaborative regional network. Frantz BioMarkers is developing these biomarkers into a clinical diagnostic test.

Co-inventors of the technology are Dr. Rebecca Sutphen, director of Clinical Genetics at Moffitt, and Lorelei Davis, Ph.D., and Lian Shan, Ph.D., of Frantz BioMarkers.

Source:
Michelle Foley
H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute