press release - UK - Targeted testing offers treatment hope for ovarian cancer patients

Public release date: 30-May-2011

Targeted testing offers treatment hope for ovarian cancer patients 
 
Women with ovarian cancer could be helped by a new test that identifies the specific type of tumour they have, a conference will hear this week.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh hope this improved diagnosis will help doctors to personalise treatment programmes so that patients receive the most effective drugs.
The Edinburgh team worked with scientists from Ireland to identify six subgroups of the disease, each of which had a different genetic signature.
To do this, they analysed tissue samples from more than 350 ovarian cancer patients and compared this information with the patients' medical records.
The results show how genetic profiling of ovarian cancers might predict a person's response to drug treatments.
Researchers say the development may be particularly helpful for women with an aggressive form of ovarian cancer, which is typically caught late by current diagnostic tests.
This type of aggressive – or 'high grade' – cancer can respond well to a recently-developed drug that targets the blood supply of the cancer cells. (blogger's note - it is not clear from this press release  if this is specific to serous cell type)
The team hopes that by identifying the women with this type of cancer at the earliest opportunity, they could use the drug more effectively and help to improve survival rates.
The findings will be presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference, being held in Chicago this week.
Dr Charlie Gourley of the University of Edinburgh, who led the study, said: "This research shows that by conducting a detailed analysis of the genes of ovarian cancers we may be able to identify those patients who will respond well to new drug treatments. This could bring valuable improvements in survival rates for the disease and would help us to personalise a patient's care to ensure the greatest possible success."
Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cancer in women, with around 6,800 women being diagnosed every year in the UK.
Of these, nearly two-thirds will not live beyond five years of their diagnosis.
Chemotherapy and surgery can be effective treatments, but women could have a greater chance of surviving the disease if it is identified earlier on.
The findings will be presented at ASCO on Saturday 4th June.

Genetic profiles distinguish different types of hereditary ovarian cancer

Abstract:

Heredity represents the strongest risk factor for ovarian cancer with disease predisposing mutations identified in 15% of the tumors. With the aim to identify genetic classifiers for hereditary ovarian cancer, we profiled hereditary ovarian cancers linked to the hereditary breast and ovarian cancer (HBOC) syndrome and the hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC) (Lynch Syndrome) syndrome. Genome-wide array comparative genomic hybridization was applied to 12 HBOC associated tumors with BRCA1 mutations and 8 HNPCC associated tumors with mismatch repair gene mutations with 24 sporadic ovarian cancers as a control group. Unsupervised cluster analysis identified two distinct subgroups related to genetic complexity. Sporadic and HBOC associated tumors had complex genetic profiles with an average 41% of the genome altered, whereas the mismatch repair defective tumors had stable genetic profiles, with an average 18% of the genome altered. Losses of 4q34, 13q12-q32 and 19p13 were overrepresented in the HBOC subset. Discriminating genes within these regions include BRCA2, FOXO1A and RB1. Gains on chromosomes 17 and 19 characterized the HNPCC tumors, but target genes herein are unknown.

The results indicate that HBOC and HNPCC associated ovarian cancer develop along distinct genetic pathways and genetic profiles can thus be applied to distinguish between different types of hereditary ovarian cancer.