A test based on seven chemicals found in uterine fluid outperformed the leading tool for diagnosing early-stage ovarian cancer – a disease that is usually spotted late and is frequently deadly
By Soumya Sagar
3 June 2023
The female reproductive system
Design Cells/iStockphoto/Getty Images
A new test may be able to detect ovarian cancer earlier than existing diagnostic tools.
Epithelial ovarian cancer, which makes up 90 per cent of ovarian cancer cases, is one of the deadliest types of cancer, with only 30 per cent of those with the disease living for more than five years after diagnosis.
One of the reasons for this is that epithelial ovarian cancer is asymptomatic for much of its course, so by the time people seek medical attention, it has reached advanced stages.
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A blood test for a protein called CA125 is used to diagnose ovarian cancer, but it doesn’t always detect the disease reliably. A population screening programme trialled in more than 200,000 women in the UK failed to significantly reduce the number of deaths from ovarian cancer.
To develop a better test, Pan Wang at Peking University in China and his colleagues collected uterine fluid from 219 women with cancer, including those with early-stage ovarian cancer, late-stage ovarian cancer, benign ovarian cancer and endometrial cancer. The uterine fluid contains cells and metabolic products, or metabolites, that come from the ovaries and fallopian tubes.
Using chemical analysers called mass spectrometers, the researchers examined the fluid of 96 women to look for metabolites whose levels were markedly distinct for those with early-stage ovarian cancer. They identified a group of seven metabolites, including the amino acids tyrosine and phenylalanine, that could be used for diagnosis.