Ovarian cancer screening hope
Thursday, 14 August 2008
Their efforts are concentrated on developing a blood test that can detect ovarian cancer cells circulating in the blood using molecular testing.
Lead researcher Associate Professor Mike McGuckin said that a screening test for ovarian cancer was vital. “1200 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year in Australia and 800 women die of the disease each year,” Professor McGuckin said.
“Unfortunately, the most common signs of ovarian cancer are symptoms like bloating, lower abdominal pain, unexplained weight gain, and irregular bowel habits.”
Because these are all fairly common complaints for women and not seen as life-threatening, it is usually only once the disease has progressed to an untreatable stage that women start to notice any serious symptoms.
“This means that while the survival rate for ovarian cancer if detected early on exceeds 90 per cent, the average survival rate is more like 30 or 40 per cent.”
Professor McGuckin and his team are commencing a clinical trial that will test and compare the blood of women suspected of having ovarian cancer against a healthy population.
“It should take us about a year to collect and analyse the samples. We then hope to carry out larger, multi-centre trials,” he said.