Source: Xinhua

03-11-2009 14:44

BEIJING, March 11 (Xinhuanet) -- British researchers found that using a blood test and an ultrasound scan together may detect ovarian cancer in its early and more curable stages, according to a study published in Tuesday's online edition of The Lancet Oncology.

British researchers found that using a blood test and an ultrasound scan together may detect ovarian cancer in its early and more curable stages.(File photo)

The two-step detection method could become a new standard in the fight against this deadly and hard to spot malignancy, experts said.

"We have now demonstrated we can pick up the vast majority of women with ovarian cancer earlier than they would have otherwise been detected and before they have symptoms," said Dr. Ian Jacobs, director of the Institute for Women's Health at University College London, "and that a good proportion of those women have earlier stage disease than we would normally expect them to have."

Jacobs, who is also the director of the trial, Dr. Usha Menon, head of the Gynaecological Cancer Research Unit at the university, and their colleagues, enrolled more than 202,638 British post-menopausal women ages 50 to 74 who got one of three screening approaches from 2001 to 2005: both ultrasound and the CA 125 blood test annually, ultrasound alone or no screening.

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