A new blood test can detect early-stage ovarian cancer markers with 92.3% accuracy, according to a study published Tuesday in Nature Medicine.
By identifying an RNA molecule known as Tu-Stroma, researchers were able to spot microscopic changes in the fallopian tubes that precede the development of invasive tumors. This breakthrough offers a potential diagnostic alternative for a disease that is frequently discovered only after it has already spread.
Ovarian cancer often begins with precancerous lesions in the lining of the fallopian tubes known as serous tubal intraepithelial carcinoma (STIC). While previous detection efforts have historically focused on locating small tumors, this research shifted the focus toward identifying molecular warning signs before the cancer progresses.
“We asked a fundamentally different question: What if we could identify the earliest molecular warning signs before invasive cancer even develops?” said Rajan Gogna, study leader at the Hoag Family Cancer Institute in Newport Beach, California.
The study demonstrated high reliability in screening, with researchers correctly identifying 98.2% of healthy women. Among women with known genetic risk factors for the disease, the test showed that approximately 72% of positive results were accurate, while negative results were correct nearly 100% of the time.
This diagnostic tool could change how doctors treat high-risk patients, who currently often face difficult decisions regarding preventive surgery to remove their ovaries and fallopian tubes without knowing if precancerous lesions are present.
“For women at high risk, this could transform how we approach prevention,” said co-author Dr. Esha Madan of the Hoag Family Cancer Institute.
“Today, decisions about preventive surgery are largely guided by inherited risk, without knowing whether precancerous lesions are actually present,” Madan said. “Our discovery could eventually provide that missing biological information.”
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