Early detection test for ovarian cancer moves one step closer with new trial

THIS disease kills one woman every eight hours, but scientists believe a new test to detect it earlier could be the key to turning around the dismal statistic.

HUNDREDS of Australian women will trial a new screening test designed by Melbourne scientists to detect ovarian cancer before it turns deadly.

Dubbed the silent killer, the cancer claims 1000 lives every year, mainly because sufferers have only vague symptoms until the cancer has spread.

Only 30 per cent of women diagnosed with advanced disease will survive five years.

SCREENING TEST TO DETECT ‘HIDDEN’ TUMOURS

NEW HOPE FOR THE DEADLIEST FEMALE CANCER

By the time Melbourne mother Leane Flynn, 50, discovered she had ovarian cancer, the tumours on her ovaries were the size of Coke cans and one was sandwiched between her liver and diaphragm.

“I had been carrying around these tumours, but I felt fine, except for some bloating and the need to urinate more frequently, just before I was diagnosed,” Mrs Flynn said.

Leane Flynn only discovered she had ovarian cancer when her tumours were the size of soft drink cans. Picture: Wayne Taylor

Despite effective surgery and chemotherapy, tumours grew back in her diaphragm, spleen, liver and bowel.

“This is a horrible cancer and all we’ve got are the standard treatments that we’ve had for 30 years, which I know will eventually stop working, so I’m scrambling.”

She is desperate to see the same success in detection and treatment for other female cancers, such as breast and cervical cancers, replicated for ovarian cancer.

Dr Andrew Stephens, from the Hudson Institute of Medical Research, hopes his screening test can improve detection.

Survival rates are up to 90 per cent when the cancer is picked up in its early stages.

Hudson Institute of Medical Research’s Dr Andrew Stephens.

OLD TUMOURS RE-EXAMINED TO HELP PREVENT FUTURE CANCERS

He said his team’s active ratio test had shown in previous studies that it could detect tumours when they were still confined to the ovary.

“Ultimately, we hope to detect precancerous lesions, in the same way Pap smears can detect early changes in cervical cancer,” he said.

The Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation will announce today a $900,000 contribution to the trial as part of a $2.8 million injection into medical research.

About 300 women from Victoria and South Australia who are at a high risk of ovarian cancer because they carry the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes will be recruited.

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