AI-powered blood test promises early detection of ovarian cancer
· News-Medical"Early detection of ovarian cancer may save lives but most women are diagnosed late in the course of the disease when survival rates are much lower," explains co-first author Jamie Medina, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. "The lack of specific symptoms early in the course of the disease or effective biomarkers has hindered earlier detection efforts."
To confirm the results, the researchers used the test in a second sample of American women that included 40 patients with ovarian cancer, 50 patients with benign ovarian growths, and 22 without known ovarian lesions. Even in this smaller sample, the test achieved similar success rates, with 73% of all cancers detected and 81% of the high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma, the most aggressive form of the disease, with almost no false positives in women without cancer. The DELFI-Pro test was also able to effectively distinguish between benign growths and cancerous tumors -; something ultrasound exams cannot.
"Ovarian cancers have a unique DNA fragmentation signature that is not present in benign lesions," says Akshaya Annapragada, co-first author and an M.D./Ph.D. student at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Being able to distinguish benign from cancerous ovarian growth is important because the next step in cancer screening for women with ovarian growths detected via ultrasound is exploratory surgery. Using the "liquid biopsy" tests could spare women with benign growths having to undergo unnecessary surgery.
Study co-authors included Sarah Short, Adrianna L. Bartolomucci, Dimitrios Mathios, Shashikant Koul, Noushin Niknafs, Michaël Noë, Zachariah H. Foda, Daniel C. Bruhm, Carolyn Hruban, Nicholas A. Vulpescu, Renu Dua, Jenna V. Canzoniero, Stephen Cristiano, Vilmos Adleff, Lori J. Sokoll, Stephen B. Baylin, Robert B. Scharpf, and Jillian Phallen of Johns Hopkins; Pien Lof, Daan van den Broek, Beatriz Carvalho, Gerrit A. Meijer, and Christine A.R. Lok from The Netherlands Cancer Institute; Euihye Jung, Heather Symecko, Susan M. Domchek, and Ronny Drapkin from the University of Pennsylvania; Michael F. Press from the University of Southern California; Dennis J. Slamon and Gottfried E. Konecny from the University of California, Los Angeles; Christina Therkildsen from the Hvidovre Hospital in Denmark; and Claus Lindbjerg Andersen from Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark and Aarhus University in Denmark.
The work was supported by the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation, the Gray Foundation, SU2C in-Time Lung Cancer Interception Dream Team Grant, Stand Up to Cancer-Dutch Cancer Society International Translational Cancer Research Dream Team Grant; DoD Omics Consortium (grant W81XWH-22-1-0852), the Honorable Tina Brozman Foundation, the Commonwealth Foundation, the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research, the Cole Foundation, the Claneil Foundation, the Canary Foundation, the Mike and Patti Hennessy Foundation, the Carl H. Goldsmith Ovarian Cancer Translational Research Fund, and the Monica K. Young Foundation, a research grant from DELFI Diagnostics, the Stichting Hanarth Fonds, Novo Nordisk Foundation, Danish Cancer Society, and National Institutes of Health grants CA121113, CA006973, CA233259, CA062924, CA271896, T32GM148383, T32GM136577, F30CA294612 and CA228991.
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