Assessment of symptomatic women for early diagnosis of ovarian cancer: results from the prospective DOvE pilot project : The Lancet Oncology

"....Seven (78%) of the HGSC in the DOvE group originated outside the ovaries and five were associated with only slightly raised CA-125 concentrations and minimal or no ovarian abnormalities on TVUS."

 

Interpretation

The proportion of HGSC that originated outside the ovaries in this study suggests that early diagnosis programmes should aim to identify low-volume disease rather than early-stage disease, and that diagnostic approaches should be modified accordingly. Although testing symptomatic women may result in earlier diagnosis of invasive ovarian cancer, large-scale implementation of this approach is premature.