Blood test may catch disease in early stages.(ovarian cancer)(Brief Article)

2002 MAR 7 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- A sensitive and noninvasive computer-assisted technique that assesses proteomic patterns in blood could be a step toward effective screening for ovarian cancer, conclude authors of a fast-track study published on the Lancet website February 8, 2002.

New technologies for the detection of early stage ovarian cancer are urgently needed, as the disease is often detected at a late stage when 5-year survival is only around 35%. Pathological changes within the ovaries might be reflected in proteomic patterns in the blood; Emanuel F. Petricoin III from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and colleagues from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Correlogic Systems, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, developed a bioinformatics process to identify proteomic patterns in blood that could distinguish malignant from benign tumours within the ovary.

The investigators analyzed blood proteins with mass spectroscopy, a technique used to sort proteins and other molecules based on their weight and electrical charge; it can provide a snapshot of thousands of proteins at once. A new computer-based "artificial intelligence" algorithm was used to identify the key diagnostic pattern. ...