Unlike cervical, breast, colon and prostate cancer, all of which have highly effective screening tests available, ovarian cancer remains incredibly difficult to catch at an early stage, when it is easiest to treat.

The most commonly used test, the CA-125 test, detects levels of a protein on the surface of many cancer cells. "The test is generally unreliable for primary screening in the general population and thus is FDA-approved only for testing for recurrent cancer," says Thomas J. Herzog, MD, who directs the division of gynecologic oncology at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. Plus, only half of patients with early-stage ovarian cancer have an elevated CA-125 level.

Recently, however, researchers have been evaluating new methods that use the fledgling science of proteomics (the study of the proteins that govern every biological process in the body) to identify ovarian cancer in its earliest-and most treatable-stages.

One approach was developed by scientists at the National Cancer Institute and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in conjunction with Correlogic Systems, Inc., a pharmaceutical/biotechnology company, in Bethesda, MD. It uses protein fingerprinting to potentially identify Stage 1 ovarian cancer from just a few drops of blood in a 30-minute test. A recently published research paper reported that of 68 cancer specimens this test correctly identified the majority of cancer specimens as cancerous, without identifying any non-cancer specimens as cancerous.¹³ Another test using a similar concept is much closer to hitting the market. Called OvaCheck, it was developed by Correlogic Systems alone and is currently undergoing large clinical trials.X

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© 2004 The National Women's Health Resource Center. All rights reserved. Reproduction of material published in the National Women's Health Report Online is encouraged with written permission from NWHRC.

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