British researchers found that using a blood test and an ultrasound scan together may detect ovarian cancer in its early and more curable stages, according to a study published in Tuesday's online edition of The Lancet Oncology.
The two-step detection method could become a new standard in the fight against this deadly and hard to spot malignancy, experts said.
"We have now demonstrated we can pick up the vast majority of women with ovarian cancer earlier than they would have otherwise been detected and before they have symptoms," said Dr. Ian Jacobs, director of the Institute for Women's Health at University College London, "and that a good proportion of those women have earlier stage disease than we would normally expect them to have."
Jacobs, who is also the director of the trial, Dr. Usha Menon, head of the Gynaecological Cancer Research Unit at the university, and their colleagues, enrolled more than 202,638 British post-menopausal women ages 50 to 74 who got one of three screening approaches from 2001 to 2005: both ultrasound and the CA 125 blood test annually, ultrasound alone or no screening.
The researchers found 90 percent of ovarian cancer cases using both steps and 75 percent cases using ultrasound alone each year. Most of these cases were in early stages (either stage I or stage II phases), which meant the cancer has not spread far and can sometimes be cured.
"The initial findings of this long-term study are encouraging, particularly because almost half of the ovarian cancers detected were at an early stage (stage I), when survival rates can be as high as 90 percent," Peter Reynolds of British Ovarian Cancer Action said.
According to the reports, ovarian cancer, which is usually asymptomatic in its early stages, strikes 21,650 women annually in the U.S., killing 15,520 a year; in Britain it affects about 7,000 women a year and kills more than 4,000.
(Agencies via Xinhua News Agency March 11, 2009)