New blood test could detect ovarian cancer before it develops

Ovarian cancer is the deadliest cancer of the women’s reproductive system.It kills 12,450 women in the US each year.Part of the reason it’s so lethal is that there is no universal screening program for the cancer and many testing options aren’t reliable.

That leaves cancer free to grow in many patients, with doctors only able to find it once the disease has reached a late stage and it’s already spread to other organs.Some women at higher risk turn to hysterectomy — a full removal of their ovaries and fallopian tubes — to lower their risk.But now, a simple blood test could revolutionize this process, catching ovarian cancer before tumors develop, early research suggests.“Ovarian cancer does not begin the day we discover a tumour.It often begins much earlier, with microscopic changes in the fallopian tubes that we can’t see during routine screenings,” said author Dr.

Rajan Gogna.“For women at high risk, this could transform how we approach prevention,” added Dr.Esha Madan.Ovarian cancer is currently detected after tumors have already formed.“We asked a fundamentally different question: What if we could identify the earliest molecular warning signs before invasive cancer even develops?” said Gogna.Researchers specifically looked at high-grade serous carcinoma (HGSC), the most common type of epithelial ovarian cancer and the cause of a majority of ovarian cancer deaths.Scientists believe HGSC starts in the fallopian tubes, where precancerous microscopic lesions called serous tubal intraepithelial carcinomas (STICs) develop.

These don’t produce symptoms and are only found after the fallopian tubes are surgically removed and examined under a microscope.Researchers wanted to see whether levels of Tu-stroma, an RNA biomarker found in the blood, could reveal the presence of developing STIC lesions.The authors believe abnormal cells release tiny packages containing Tu-stroma, some of which enter the bloodstream.The study found evidence that T...