A new study suggests that blood tests could help in detecting ovarian cancer at its early stage as an alternative screening strategy.
Dr. Karen Lu, lead author of the study from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and her colleagues recruited 4,051 post- menopausal women and had them undergo an initial blood test.
The blood test measures the level of CA125, a protein present in ovarian cells than any other cells. Scientists believe that it can be used to detect the level of risk of a woman based on the measurement of this protein. Monitoring could be done every four to six months during the first two years then every six months for three years then yearly. Anything above 35 U/mL is considered abnormal.
The researchers monitored the protein on the blood of the participants for 11 years by having their blood tests annually. About 83 percent of these women showed normal levels of CA125.
The researchers subjected 14 percent of the group to another blood test in three months.
Lu's team found out that three percent of the women showed high risk because of the abnormal level of the protein and had them undergo transvaginal ultrasound as the second step of screening. The final step is a consultation with a gynecologic oncologist.
The four participants identified to be high-risk showed low presence of CA125 for three years before it rose to abnormal levels.
"Given the relatively low prevalence of ovarian cancer in the general population, a screening strategy that minimizes unnecessary operations due to false positive values in crucial," Lu wrote in the study.
The researchers declared that the "positive predictive value" of this alternative screening test is at 40 percent. It had surpassed the required 10 percent value. However, they clarified that it isn't approved yet by doctors as an official screening test.
Another similar study is currently being conducted in the U.K with 200,000 participants. It aims to see whether blood tests could really effectively decrease the number of deaths on ovarian cancer patients.
