Ovarian Cancer Detection with Blood- and Imaging-Based Biomarkers

NIH RePORTER · CA · R01 · $738,514 · view on reporter.nih.gov ↗

Abstract

A central problem in ovarian cancer is late diagnosis, which causes the 5-year survival rate to plummet below 50%. Ovarian cancer symptoms are vague and nonspecific, and current screening is generally not effective. Because ovarian cancer is so deadly, risk-reducing salpingo-oophorectomy (RRSO) is often recommended for women at high risk; however, RRSO has fertility and health consequences. It is now believed that ovarian high-grade serous carcinoma (HGSC) may begin in the fallopian tubes (FTs) as serous tubal intraepithelial carcinoma (STIC), and that precancerous changes are detectable before metastasis to the ovary and peritoneal cavity occurs. Our preliminary data indicate that there are significant changes in serum protein biomarkers in HGSC cases 12-84 months prior to diagnosis. Further, we have also shown that changes occur in multispectral fluorescence image markers of normal and cancerous ovaries and FTs, and that we can build a thin falloposcope suitable for traversing the uterus and FT for imaging and cell collection. We will address the unmet clinical need for a minimally invasive test for STIC and early (stage I/II) ovarian cancer. Currently, no methods enable the detection of ovarian HGSC with a lead time of more than 12 months. Overall, our work will meet the need to detect aggressive cancers at the earliest possible stage. Our initial target population is women at high risk for ovarian cancer who wish to delay or avoid RRSO. We will combine blood screening for protein markers with a minimally invasive falloposcopy for optical imaging and FT cell collection. Our procedure will be tested in a study of women at high risk undergoing bilateral salpingo- oophorectomy with hysterectomy, which will enable us to obtain and compare test results to gold standard histology. The specific aims are to: 1) Develop and validate biomarkers that detect STIC and early epithelial ovarian cancer. We will improve upon our existing cut-off based algorithm with newly-disco

Key facts

NIH application ID
11257652
Project number
5R01CA260399-05
Recipient
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
Principal Investigator
Jennifer Kehlet Barton; David A. Fishman; Anna E. Lokshin
Activity code
R01
Funding institute
CA
Fiscal year
2026
Award amount
$738,514
Award type
5
Project period
2022-01-01T00:00:00 → 2026-12-31T00:00:00