Early screening dilemma for ovarian cancer patients
Ovarian cancer is mostly diagnosed at stages three and four when it has advanced too profoundly to be cured.
What you need to know:
- According to Lancet Kenya, death from ovarian cancer is strongly related to the disease stage.
- Stages one and three are associated with survival rates of more than 70 per cent
- Stages three and four have a survival rate of 0 to 20 per cent
Screening for ovarian cancer does not reduce early deaths, shows research.
Ovarian cancer is one of the most complicated cancers to treat. This is because it is mostly diagnosed at stages three and four when it has advanced too profoundly to be cured.
According to Lancet Kenya, death from ovarian cancer is strongly related to the disease stage.
Stages one and three are associated with survival rates of more than 70 per cent while stages three and four have a survival rate of 0 to 20 per cent.
This implies that early screening could be a life saver if the cancer is spotted at the early stage.
However, the research from the UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening shows otherwise. This mega screening research conducted by scientists from the University College London (UCL) was launched to establish if early screening for ovarian cancer could help in treatment and reduce deaths.
This research examined data from more than 200,000 women aged between 50 and 79 years. These women were followed for a period of 16 years.
Late stage
They were randomly put in one of three groups that included no screening, yearly screening with the use of a vaginal ultrasound scan, and the yearly multimodal screening with use of blood test and vaginal ultrasound scan.
The blood test monitored changes in the level of the protein CA125.
According to the study report published in the medical journal The Lancet, blood test screening was able to identify 39 per cent more cancers at between stage one and stage two of the ovarian cancer. It was, however, only able to pick up 10 per cent cancers at stage three and four.
“While using the combination of multimodal testing led to picking up of cancers at an early stage, neither of the screening methods led to a reduction in deaths,” said Prof Usha Menon, the head of clinical trials at UCL who led the research team.
Prof Menon said the findings that screening did not save lives meant that ovarian cancer screening is not recommendable for the general population.
“For lives to be saved, better screening methods than multimodal screening for ovarian cancer are then required to be innovated and deployed,” he said.
The study also provided a silver lining for patients.
“Although screening tended to show no effect on women without any symptoms of ovarian cancer, there was an indication that screening in women with early symptoms of ovarian cancer can be a catalyst for better quality of life and management,” it said.
