New test helps doctors diagnose and treat ovarian cancer

An international team of researchers led by KU Leuven has developed a new test to help doctors diagnose ovarian tumours and choose the most appropriate treatment. The researchers have recently described the test called ADNEX `

Existing predication models for ovarian cancer discriminate between benign and malignant tumours but lack accuracy and are unable to sub-classify different types of malignant tumour. This makes determining the appropriate treatment difficult, since some ovarian tumours require more serious treatment than others.

The new test developed by Professor Ben Van Calster (KU Leuven) in cooperation with the International Ovarian Tumour Analysis group (IOTA) not only discriminates between benign and malignant tumours but also makes it possible to accurately identify and classify malignant tumours into four types: borderline, stage 1 invasive, stage II-IV invasive and secondary metastatic.

The test is based on the patient’s clinical information, a simple tumour marker blood test and features that can be identified on an ultrasound scan. In addition to identifying the type of tumour, the test also expresses the confidence of the diagnosis as a percentage.

Doctors can use the test in a clinical database or by entering the patient’s details into a smartphone app, which was demonstrated to gynaecologists at the International Society for Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology World Congress in Barcelona last month. The authors of the study say doctors could start using ADNEX straight away.

Successful treatment depends in large part on the correct identification of the type of tumour, but this can be difficult. As a result, many women with ovarian cancer are not referred to the right specialist and some undergo more serious operations than necessary. A benign ovarian tumour often does not even need treatment at all.

But for malignant tumours especially, determining the tumour type is crucial to selecting the right specialist surgeon and treatment.

The researchers developed the test using data from almost 6,000 ovarian cancer patients, which were gathered and analysed by the IOTA group led by Professor Dirk Timmerman of UZ Leuven (University Hospitals Leuven), KU Leuven’s network of research hospitals. University of Leuven