Ovarian cancer screening may save lives

The researchers then used the Cox method to estimate mortality risk and found that found that screening lowered death risk from ovarian cancer by nearly 20 percent. Researchers in a large study in Britain found screening may reduce mortality from the disease by one-fifth after a follow-up of 14 years.

A study published Thursday shows that a careful formula that combines a blood test with ultrasound scans could reduce deaths from ovarian cancer by 20 percent. Has your life been touched by this disease?

ROCA – The Risk of Ovarian Cancer Algorithm – was co-invented by Prof Jacobs and is licensed to a UCL spin out company of which he is a non-executive director.

“This study is important in that the early detection of ovarian cancer, and hence early treatment, has the potential to save lives”.

Professor Ian Jacobs, of the Institute for Women’s Health at University College London (UCL), said: “These results from UKCTOCS provide estimates of the mortality reduction attributable to ovarian cancer screening which range from 15 per cent to 28 per cent”. During that time, 1,282 of them were diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and 649 died of the disease.

For those who had surgery, only around 3pc had major complications – the standard complication rate for this type of surgery in the NHS.

About half were assigned to a control group that received no screening.

Beginning in 2001 UKCTOCS enrolled more than 202,000 postmenopausal women, ages 50 to 74, without a strong family history of ovarian cancer. There are different subtypes of ovarian cancer, and not all types shed the CA-125 protein, she explains.

She said the findings were the first evidence from a randomized, controlled trial that screening can reduce deaths from ovarian cancer.

At a median follow-up of 11 years with the participants, 338 in the MMS group were diagnosed with ovarian cancer, 314 were diagnosed in the USS group, and 630 in the no screening group. The first analysis found fewer deaths from ovarian cancer in both the CA125 and ultrasound groups, but the differences were not statistically significant. “Meanwhile efforts can be made to refine ovarian cancer screening, develop tests with greater sensitivity and more lead time and improve ways to risk stratify the population”.

Results suggested that for women who received the annual blood test, the current reduction in death rates is estimated at 15%.

Most of the mortality benefit occurred during the later years of follow-up: 8% during years 0 to 7 versus 23% during years 7 to 14 in the multimodality group and 2% versus 21% in the ultrasound group. Cancer Research UK who helped fund the study said it would amount to ‘a lot of unnecessary surgery’. Longer follow-up is needed to determine the ultimate mortality reduction and if screening the general population is cost effective. Trying to unravel the mechanism behind this effect so that it can be improved should have high priority…Awareness and symptom recognition for diagnosis of cancer at an early stage will be hard to improve upon.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has recommend against routine screening of women who have an average risk of ovarian cancer. Screening will not be warranted until the UKCTOCS outcome has been validated in daily practice.

Rene Verheijen, from the department of gynecological oncology at the UMC Utrecht Cancer Center in the Netherlands, said screening and early detection could prove to be “an alternative to aggressive and expensive treatments that try but fail to improve survival of patients with ovarian cancer”.