Ovarian screening test proves 100% effective:
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
A US study has shown that a potential screening test for ovarian cancer could be 100% effective at detecting the disease early. The test uses high-resolution mass spectrometry (MS) to measure patterns of protein markers in blood. Study researchers, led by Tim Veenstra of the National Cancer Institute at Frederick, in Maryland, said that the technique correctly classified serum obtained from epithelial ovarian cancer patients and healthy patients with a sensitivity and specificity of 100%. Describing their findings in Endocrine-Related Cancer (2004, 11 163-178), the researchers concluded: "Multiple and distinct proteomic patterns, comprising low molecular weight biomarkers, detected by high-resolution MS achieve accuracies surpassing individual biomarkers, warranting validation in a large clinical study."