Biomarker May Point to Early Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer is often referred to as a “silent” disease, only becoming apparent at advanced stages. A new finding, however, may make it easier to detect the disease at early stages when it is more curable.

Investigators have found that lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) is present at elevated levels in the blood of women with ovarian cancer, including those with early stage disease. LPA thus might be of use as a biomarker. “In healthy women, LPA is typically present only at very low levels,” Dr. Rebecca Sutphen from the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa, Florida told Reuters Health. “There is currently no effective screening test for ovarian cancer,” she continued, “and most patients are diagnosed late, at a time when they cannot be cured. When ovarian cancer can be detected at an early stage, 90 percent of cases can be cured, so early detection is critical.” In the medical journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, the team describes how they measured levels of LPA and other lysophospholipids (LPLs) in blood samples from 117 women with ovarian cancer and 27 healthy controls. There were statistically significant differences between 45 samples from women with pre-operative cancer and 27 control samples in average levels of total LPA, and individual types of LPA. The combination of two LPA types — 16:0-LPA and 20:4-LPA — “yielded the best discrimination” between ovarian cancer and control samples, say the researchers, correctly identifying ovarian cancer 93.1 percent of the time. “This suggests that LPA might be useful as an early detection blood test for ovarian cancer, but validation of these findings is needed before that can be confirmed,” Sutphen concluded (SOURCE: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention: Reuters Health News: Megan Rauscher: July 2004.)