New test twice as effective in ovarian cancer detection

In the largest trial of its kind, researchers, including one of Indian-origin, have found that a new screening method can detect twice as many women with ovarian cancer than conventional strategies.

The new method involves a statistical calculation to interpret the changing levels of a protein called CA125 in women's blood, that is linked to ovarian cancer.

In the trial spanning 14 years, the new method detected cancer in 86 percent of women with invasive epithelial ovarian cancer (iEOC), whereas the conventional test used in previous trials or in clinical practice would have identified fewer than half of these women, the study said.

"These results are very encouraging. They show that use of an early detection strategy based on an individual's CA125 profile significantly improved cancer detection compared with what we've seen in previous screening trials," said co-principal investigator Usha Menon, professor at University College London.

The trial involved 202,638 post-menopausal women who were randomly assigned to two different annual screening strategies (multi-modal screening/transvaginal ultrasound) or no test at all.

The study evaluated 46,237 women who continued to attend annual multi-modal screening following the first screening.

Their blood was tested once a year for CA125 levels and then a computer algorithm was used to interpret their risk of ovarian cancer based on factors including the woman's age, the original levels of CA125 and how that level changed over time.

The pattern was compared with known cases of cancer and controls to estimate the risk of contracting ovarian cancer.

The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.