ANOTHER GLIMMER OF HOPE?

In Norway, 2007

and about to descend the "Trollsteigen", the most incredible highway on earth

Friday, January 11, 2013 2:14 PM

I am rolling in wealth, help-wise.  As I have said many times before, I couldn’t do this blog without the assistance of my indefatigable research assistant, Dick Ingwall.  Now it appears that Dick will have help.  I am going to report on a story about new uses for the Pap smear that have promising implications for ovarian cancer early detection.  It appeared in the New York Times, as reported by my granddaughter Olivia Kelly from her classroom at Western Washington University, as well as by  Dick from his sickbed in Borrego Springs, CA.  My daughter Kristen spotted it on American TV (I missed it: I was involved in a Best of Gilligan’s Island marathon.)  Finally, “parkfriend” ran on it on Canadian TV from her living room in Toronto.  As I said, my cup runneth over.  Keep up the work, gang, and I will have plenty to write about.

So, it appears that some people from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore have found reason to believe that a side-benefit of the Pap smear eventually may be the early detection of ovarian and endometrial cancer -  given much more study and not a little luck.  Many (most?) women get regular Pap tests, which are very effective at detecting the presence of cervical cancer, often at an early, highly curable stage.  The Hopkins team reasoned that a few cells from other types of uterine cancer also may be present in the Pap smears of women with endometrial or ovarian disease.  However, if so they would be there in such minute amounts as to be undetectable by ordinary methods.  Fortunately, it turns out that, the genomes of many types of endometrial and ovarian cancer have been sequenced and  a list of cancer-associated mutations compiled.  Using methods not described (but probably involving some very expensive machinery), it appears to be possible to spot cells with these mutations.  This can be done with only marginally little clinical fuss, and-  maybe, eventually - at no great expense.  Thus, hooray!

But take another look.  The original research involved woman already KNOWN to have either endometrial or ovarian cancer.  The test, in its early stages, detected 100%of the endometrial tumors, but only 41% of the ovarian tumors.  Moreover, a concurrent  experiment to determine if the test turned up false positives (it didn’t) involved only 14 women.  One can foresee some vast clinical trials in the immediate future.  As one scientist quoted said, “It’s not ready for prime time”.

But, anyway, take a little hope.  We’ll lick this damned thing yet.

P.S.  Want to read the NYTimes article?: http://nyti.ms/VThUQp

The CBC news release uses fewer obscure words:  http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2013/01/10/ovarian-cancer-pap.html.  , and moreover has a very good explanatory diagram.