Trials begin on new ovarian cancer test
Posted Tue Jun 15, 2010 12:04pm AEST
Scientists in Melbourne have started trials on what they hope will be a more effective test for ovarian cancer.
The Government of Victoria has cleared a new trial for the early detection of ovarian cancer called OvPlex. The new test is developed by the biotechnology company HealthLinx in Melbourne.
The tests were launched by the Minister for Innovation, Gavin Jennings today. He stressed that these tests could change the life of millions of women around the world apart from benefitting Australian women suffering from ovarian cancer.
As part of the new experiment, Melbourne's Mercy Hospital for Women along with Mater Adult Hospital in Queensland will offer these tests to women. These institutes will be joined by several medical facilities in the UK for the trail of these tests. The test works by identifying 7 biomarkers in the blood sample of women.
The Government of Victoria is spending $750,000 to help in the development of OvPlex tests. The test is also available to women in Australia through their GPs and it is being distributed by Healthscope Pathology. The test examines five biomarkers found in the women’s blood.
In this test, apart from the existing techniques, two new biomarkers will be tested by the researchers. Experts feel that these tests offer a ray of hope to millions of cancer patients across the world.
It is expected that the new tests will improve the performance of the current tests from 94% to 97%, or even higher.
More than 1,000 women will be included in the worldwide trial.
Ovarian cancer expert Professor Greg Rice says if successful, the test's accuracy would increase from 94 to 97 per cent.
"The idea is to improve the performance of the test, to be looking at its accuracy, to identify women with ovarian cancer hopefully earlier during the course of their disease," he said.
Health authorities would need the test to be almost 100 per cent accurate before it could be used across the population.
Approximately 800 Australian women die from ovarian cancer each year.
