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Symptom Screening Advances Early Ovarian Cancer
Detection
Main Category: Cancer / Oncology News
Article Date: 14 Dec 2006 - 22:00 PST
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A symptom survey may provide clinicians with a rapid, cost-effective
screening tool to detect early stages of ovarian cancer, according
to a new study. Published in the January 15, 2007 issue of CANCER,
a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study
reveals that early ovarian cancer may be distinguished from other
causes by a specific set of symptoms and their frequency and duration.
Physicians generally consider ovarian cancer to be a "silent
killer." That is, it develops asymptomatically or with symptoms
easily attributable to benign causes until diagnosed late in the
course of disease and well after a cure is likely. There is no effective
screening test to detect early stage disease in the general population
or even high-risk groups. Consequently, no professional gynecology
association or public health agency recommends routine screening.
Also, the lack of recognized, early clinical signs and symptoms
delays diagnosis until advanced disease. These factors combine to
make ovarian cancer one of the deadliest malignancies in the world.
Recent evidence suggests that early-stage symptoms may be recognizable
and could be used to develop a symptom index for early disease.
Led by Barbara A. Goff, M.D. of the University of Washington School
of Medicine and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle,
researchers compared the clinical history of women at high risk
for developing ovarian cancer and women already diagnosed with ovarian
cancer to develop a basic symptom index to screen for ovarian cancer.
They found "that a relatively simple evaluation of symptoms
of recent onset and significant frequency" was sufficient to
be a potential screening tool. Any complaint of pelvic/abdominal
pain, increased abdominal size/bloating, or difficulty eating/feeling
full that is present more than 12 days per month and for less than
one year was 57 percent sensitive for early disease and 80 percent
sensitive for advanced cancer; and 90 percent specific for women
over 50 years of age and 86.7 percent for women under 50 years of
age. While Dr. Goff plans on evaluating a simple three question
screening in a multi-year study in general clinical practice, "a
symptom index, though, is only one of a number of promising research
tracks the ovarian cancer advocacy community actively supports,"
writes Sherry Salway Black, Executive Director of the Ovarian Cancer
National Alliance in Washington, D.C. in an accompanying editorial
from the same issue. Although years away, the development of a screening
blood test would be "the real key to early detection."
She continues, "until there is a valid screening test, the
symptom index could serve an important role in detecting cancers,
and after a test is identified, the index could be a tool used in
combination with other methods to contribute to early detection."
In the meantime, according to Ms. Salway Black, health organizations
will continue to educate women and physicians about "the symptoms
so that if cancer develops, it is diagnosed early" because
"at present, awareness of these symptoms is our best hope for
early detection."
###
Article: "Development of an Ovarian Cancer Symptom Index:
Possibilities for Earlier Detection," Barbara A. Goff, MD,
Lynn S. Mandel, Charles W. Drescher, Nicole Urban, Shirley Gough,
Kristi M. Schurman, Joshua Patras, Barry S. Mahony, M. Robyn Andersen,
CANCER; Published Online: December 11, 2006 (DOI:
10.1002/cncr.22371); Print Issue Date: January 15, 2007.
Editorial: "Ovarian Cancer Symptom Index: Possibilities for
Earlier Detection," Sherry Salway Black, Susan Lowell Butler,
Patricia A. Goldman, Mary Jackson Scroggins, CANCER; Published Online:
December 11, 2006 (DOI: 10.1002/cncr.22414); Print Issue Date: January
15, 2007
Contact: David Greenberg
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
New Approach To Early Detection Of Ovarian Cancer
Main Category: Cancer / Oncology News
Article Date: 23 Aug 2006 - 0:00 PST
Despite advances in surgery and chemotherapy, ovarian cancer is
still the most lethal form of gynecologic cancer and the fourth
leading cause of cancer death among women in the United States;
claiming 16,210 lives in 2005.
Survival rates for ovarian cancer have remained stubbornly low
because symptoms are often vague and mimic other conditions, and
the lack of a cost-effective, reliable test to diagnose this "silent
killer" early, when it is most curable. A test is urgently
needed that would rival the positive impact on survival that the
Pap smear and mammography have had on cancers of the cervix and
breast, respectively.
The statistics tell the story. Currently, three of every four women
have advanced stage ovarian cancer when they are diagnosed, and
only 25 percent of these women survive for five years. In contrast,
the one woman in four diagnosed with early stage disease has a five-year
survival rate exceeding 90 percent.
Now, innovative research at Roswell Park Cancer Institute and the
University at Buffalo has produced compelling evidence that a simple
blood test for early ovarian cancer screening might be developed
sooner rather than later.
Scientists at these institutions have used sophisticated computer-modeling
programs to interpret data from nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)
analyses of blood samples and produce cellular profiles that show
the identities, structures and proportions of metabolites (metabonomics).
This NMR-based metabonomics approach has identified characteristics,
known as biomarkers, in blood samples that can leave a "biomolecular
signature" that distinguishes women with early stage ovarian
cancer from healthy women. Scientists believe that these biomarkers
could be developed into a screening test for ovarian cancer.
However, before this simple blood test can be developed, researchers
will use the same approach to hone in on the specific metabolite
(or metabolites) responsible for differences between healthy women
and cancer patients, and make early diagnosis of ovarian cancer
possible. These metabolites also could be targets for therapy.
Scientists believe that this NMR-based metabonomics approach will
not only benefit thousands of women each year, but have practical
implications in other types of cancer as well.
Elm & Carlton St
Buffalo, NY 14263
United States
http://www.roswellpark.org
Neighborhood parks boost girls' physical
activity levels
Last Updated: 2006-11-16 11:32:41 -0400
(Reuters Health)
By Anne Harding
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Young girls who live within
a half-mile of a park are more physically active than those with
no parks near their homes, a new study shows.
And the more amenities like tennis or basketball courts, playgrounds,
and running tracks in these neighborhood parks, the more vigorously
active the girls were, Dr. Deborah A. Cohen of the RAND Corporation
in Santa Monica, California, and colleagues found.
While the current study could not determine whether or not the
girls were actually spending time in their local parks, Cohen noted
in an interview with Reuters Health, the findings make it clear
that environment did play a role in their physical activity levels.
The current study included 1,556 sixth-grade girls living in six
US cities. For six days, each wore a device called an accelerometer
that measured the amount and intensity of her physical activity.
The researchers also mapped out the number of parks near each study
participant's home.
Living within a half-mile of a park was tied to increased activity
and physical activity rose with the number of parks. However, parks
further away from a girl's home had no effect, the researchers found.
For example, a girl who lived within a half-mile of 3.5 parks would
be 10 percent more active, on average, than a girl who had no parks
in her neighborhood.
The researchers also found that living close to parks with facilities
such as gyms, swimming pools and walking paths was associated with
even more intense physical activity compared to living near parks
without such amenities. Parks with streetlights and floodlights
were also linked to more physical activity than unlit parks.
There are two schools of thought on physical activity and environment,
Cohen notes; either that a person's surroundings have no effect
on physical activity or that aspects of a person's environment --
like living in a neighborhood with no sidewalks or where being outside
isn't safe -- play a role.
"This study supports the idea that the environment matters," she
said. "If the environment didn't matter, we wouldn't see an association."
Cohen pointed out that 43 percent of girls in the current study
had no parks within a half-mile radius of their homes, making it
clear that "there's a long way to go" before parks' potentially
health-promoting effects are universally available.
SOURCE: Pediatrics, November 2006.
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