The dire need to develop a clinically validated screening method for the detection of early-stage ovarian cancer.

摘要

For almost half a century, the WHO has urged the medical community to create screening methods with the primary purpose of detecting disease at an early, treatable stage [1]. This is of particular importance in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) given that there are no clinically validated biomarkers or screening protocols available for the accurate detection of early-stage disease. This year, approximately 22,000 women will be newly diagnosed with ovarian cancer, while an additional 15,000 deaths will be attributed to this disease [2]. These statistics make EOC the fifth leading cause of cancer death in women and the most lethal gynecologic malignancy, with more women dying from this disease than all other gynecologic malignancies combined [2]. In addition, during the past 40 years, the overall survival for women with advanced-stage (III/IV) EOC has remained relatively unchanged, at less than 30%, despite surgical advancements and improvements in chemotherapeutics [2]. However, women diagnosed with early-stage EOC (stage I) require less morbid surgical procedures, may not require adjuvant chemotherapy, have an improved quality of life and, most importantly, have an overall survival approaching 93% [2]. Unfortunately, the majority of women (75%) continue to be diagnosed with advanced-stage EOC owing to the rather stealth nature of early-stage disease and the lack of a clinically validated screening method. Therefore, increasing the proportion of women detected with early-stage EOC, particularly stage I, would significantly improve women's healthcare.