EU: Largest Cancer Diagnostics Research Project Based In Vienna

Main Category: Ovarian Cancer
Also Included In: Cancer / Oncology
Article Date: 21 Apr 2006 - 0:00 PDT

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Timely and optimal cancer therapies - this is the aim of OVCAD, a new EU research initiative that will identify proteins and changes in genes and RNA expression that could predict the future course of ovarian cancer at the time of diagnosis. The 15 participating groups from six countries, to be coordinated from the Medical University of Vienna (Austria), will begin their work with a kick-off meeting there on 23. April. OVCAD, initially planned for three years, is the largest single project for the early diagnosis of cancer in Europe, and has a budget of over EUR 4.2 million.

Not all cancer patients respond equally well to their therapy, but a doctor cannot tell in advance how things will go. The information must come from the tumour itself, but this takes time. If the tumour shrinks the therapy has been a success - but if it grows further the treatment has failed, and the patient has lost precious time.

Tumours Leave Molecular Traces

OVCAD will tackle this weakness. In the words of Prof. Robert Zeillinger of the Medical University of Vienna, the scientist who is coordinating the initiative: "Even the smallest tumours leave traces in the body. We want to learn to find and understand these traces. This would permit quick and accurate diagnoses that would reveal which therapy offers the best prospects at an early stage."

The oncologists' search for traces is at the molecular level. The development of cancer causes molecular markers such as proteins, genetic changes and RNA to undergo specific adjustments that can be detected at an early stage of tumour progression. However up until now there has been no systematic research into individual molecular markers and the patterns formed by their numerous changes during tumour development. OVCAD will now carry out such research.

Conventional diagnostic methods are particularly ineffective in the case of ovarian cancer, and 75% of the victims are not diagnosed until the disease has reached an advanced stage. For many years now, the glycoprotein CA125 in patients' serum has been used as a biomarker for diagnosis, but only provides limited information. Explaining the difficulty, Zeillinger said: "The CA125 marker does help us monitor the response to the therapy, but it is too unspecific for early diagnosis and offers no indication of how the disease will progress. That is crucial with ovarian cancer, as the standard therapy is ineffective for almost 25% of the 63,000 or more patients diagnosed in Europe each year. Molecular markers are capable of identifying tumour recurrence and even individual tumour cells that have already metastasised at an early stage, so they could help us to take appropriate action quickly."

International Effort

The Austrian researchers, together with more than 100 colleagues from Belgium, France, Germany, Israel and the Netherlands, will now examine molecular markers and their patterns in 200 ovarian cancer patients. Tissue samples, blood and ascitic fluid will be tested for salient molecular markers at the time of clinical diagnosis. These examinations will be repeated six months after the standard therapy has finished, so as to ascertain whether given markers are particularly prevalent in the 25% of women with whom the therapy is ineffective. If this is the case it will be possible to predict failure at the moment of diagnosis.

OVCAD will also investigate some of the reasons for lack of response to the standard therapy, including so-called multidrug resistance genes and their proteins, which cause the early efflux of chemotherapeutics from cancer cells. The consequence of this phenomenon, which has been investigated by Prof. Theresia Thalhammer at the Medical University of Vienna, is that the chemotherapeutics do not remain in the cells long enough, thus never attaining their full effectiveness.

The coordination role in this research - the largest EU cancer diagnostics project under way at present - builds on the successful cooperation between the Molecular Oncology and Molecular Genetics groups at the Medical University of Vienna. In 2005 Prof. Michael Krainer and Robert Zeillinger attracted widespread international attention when they demonstrated that some women's immune systems are defenceless against ovarian cancer because the tumour cells lack certain proteins. They were also able to prove that the lack of expression of two genes in ovarian cancer is closely linked to the subsequent progression of tumour growth. Both findings helped to establish OVCAD, and research into them will continue.

Background: OVCAD - OVarian CAncer Diagnosis - is a Specific Targeted Research Project (STREP) into cancer diagnostics under the EU's Sixth Framework Programme. The goal of the project is to identify molecular markers that permit conclusions about the future success of the therapy at the time when the diagnosis of ovarian cancer is made. OVCAD is made up of eleven academic and four industrial partner groups from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Israel and the Netherlands. The project will run for three years, and is receiving EUR 4.26 million in support from the EU. It will be coordinated by the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Medical University of Vienna.

www.meduniwien.ac.at

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