New early warning sign for silent killer

SCIENTISTS have discovered a molecule in the blood that could help doctors spot the very earliest signs of ovarian cancer and prevent thousands of women from dying.

Ovarian cancer is known as the “silent killer” because it often remains hidden until it is too late to control. In Scotland, the disease kills more than 420 women a year and 4,400 across the UK.

But until now doctors have struggled to diagnose the disease before obvious symptoms emerge.

Researchers in the United States believe that the discovery of the new biomarker in the blood – an antibody forming part of the immune system –could pave the way to screening women at high risk of ovarian cancer or those with early-stage tumours.

Lead scientist Professor Judith Luborsky, from Rush University in Chicago, said: “The finding is extremely important because at present medical tests are unable to detect ovarian cancer at its early stages, which is why death rates from this disease are so high.

“Our approach to discovering cancer biomarkers was unique in this study. Instead of investigating molecules specific to ovarian cancer alone, we asked what molecules women with a risk of ovarian cancer and those with ovarian cancer had in common.”

The strategy revealed a link between the mesothelin antibody, infertility, and ovarian cancer. A strong association between infertility and the disease was already known from previous studies.

Prof Luborsky’s team, writing in the journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention, tested for mesothelin antibodies in the blood of 109 infertile women, 28 diagnosed with ovarian cancer, 24 with benign ovarian tumours or cysts, and 152 who were healthy.

Significant numbers of antibodies were found in women with premature ovarian failure, ovulatory dysfunction and unexplained infertility, as well as those with ovarian cancer. They were not found in women with the womb disease endometriosis, healthy women, or women with benign disease.

Dr Mark Matfield, of the St Andrews-based Association for International Cancer Research, said there was a desperate need for a better blood test to detect ovarian cancer early.

“These findings are very preliminary and a lot more research is required before we will know if this could become a useful test for ovarian cancer,” he said. “However, the fact that there are so many teams studying this problem holds out the hope that, in the not too distant future, a better test will be able to detect early ovarian cancer and save the lives of tens of thousands of women around the world.”

Laura McCallum, from Cancer Research UK, said: “These early findings are intriguing, but further studies will be needed to confirm if this molecule could be useful in diagnosing cancer.”