Ovarian Cancer
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Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths in women. The absence of specific symptoms at early stages of the disease means that the majority of cases are only diagnosed when the cancer is at an advanced stage and consequently survival rates for this disease are low (15-20% 5 year survival). The most frequently used serum biomarker employed to identify women at risk of suffering from EOC is CA-125. However, the specificity of this marker is low, meaning that many women with elevated levels of CA-125 do not have EOC. In fact CA-125 appears to be a non-specific marker for a variety of benign diseases linked to peritoneal inflammation. While CA-125 testing has some value in monitoring patients in remission from EOC for possible disease recurrence the marker is of no value for initial disease diagnosis or screening. |
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Better tools for the early detection of EOC are urgently needed if the death toll from this disease is to be reduced. In order to address this need Proteomika has undertaken a comprehensive search for candidate biomarkers for detection of early stage EOC working with a variety of biological samples (ascitic fluid, serum and urine) and using an extensive sample bank representing all stages of EOC that we have assembled for this study.
A multi-center validation study of the candidate biomarkers identified by Proteomika is underway with the participation of the best clinical researchers in the field of gynecological oncology in Spain.
Our objective is to develop a simple to use screening test that is able to identify cases of EOC based on this panel of biomarkers in order to improve the early detection of ovarian cancer.
