open access: Expert Reviews - Current developments in ovarian cancer screening (March 2012)

Expert Reviews - Expert Review of Obstetrics & Gynecology - 7(2):131 - Full Text

ABSTRACT

Over 150 delegates from the UK, USA and Europe with a core interest in risk prediction and screening for ovarian cancer attended the International Conference on Ovarian Cancer Screening held on 29–30 November 2011 in London, UK. The scientific program was driven by two experts in the field – Usha Menon and Ian Jacobs – with assistance from the scientific committee, which included Steve Skates, Jatinderpal Kalsi, Anna Lokshin, Uzi Beller, Tim Mould and Ranjit Manchanda. Over the 2 days, key opinion leaders and researchers reported on the latest developments, and debated the future of risk prediction and screening for ovarian cancer.

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The conference started with a welcome from Ian Jacobs (University of Manchester, Manchester, UK), followed by an overview of the current management of ovarian cancer (OC) by Tim Mould (University College Hospitals NHS Trust, London, UK). Stuart Campbell (Create Health Ltd, London, UK), a stalwart in the field of pelvic ultrasonography, chaired the first session on differential diagnosis in symptomatic patients. Robert Bast (University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, TX, USA), who in the early 1980s discovered CA125, discussed recent biomarker panels and algorithms (Risk of Malignancy Index [RMI], Risk of Ovarian Malignancy Algorithm [ROMA] and OVA1) for OC diagnosis. His view was that the current challenge, especially in the USA, was implementation so that OC patients could be operated on by trained gynecological oncologists. Of the many OC markers, CA125 and HE4 provided the greatest discrimination between malignant and benign adnexal masses, with the latter particularly useful in premenopausal women..........cont'd