The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has approved a research project of the University of Health Sciences (UHS), the focus of which will be developing technique for an early diagnosis of 'Ovarian Cancer' in Pakistani women.
The research titled "The identification of Protein Biomarkers in the Serum for Early Diagnosis of Ovarian Cancer", will be conducted by UHS Professor of Physiology, Dr Naeem Iqbal.
Ovarian cancer is the fourth most frequent cause of death from cancer in women. The incidence of ovarian cancer in Pakistani women is 13.6 percent and mortality rate of 47 percent for patients with this encounter for the highest mortality of all malignant diseases of the female genital tract. There are no obvious symptoms of ovarian cancer; it is diagnosed at a later stage in more than 80 percent of patients.
For patients diagnosed at late stage, a five-year survival is about 35 percent. In contrast, patients diagnosed at an early stage have a five-year survival of 90 percent. Therefore, need for an efficient method to detect ovarian cancer at an early stage is vital.
Professor Naeem said the aim of the study was to identify specific protein Biomarkers in the blood of patients having benign or malignant cyst of the ovary. "We expect appearance of certain proteins in blood at the initial stages of cyst development. These proteins could be used in future as Biomarkers to diagnose ovarian cancer at an early stage'.
This new diagnostic approach will have great advantage to detect cancer without having to biopsy individual tissue samples, he maintained. Early non-invasive detection of ovarian malignancy might lead to the development of new therapeutic strategies to save the life and improve the reproductive health of the patient, he added.