Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research

(Uppsala, July 28th)—Scientists from the Uppsala Branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR) have made a promising discovery that could improve the early diagnosis of breast and ovarian cancers through a simple blood test.

The LICR team, working in collaboration with a group at the Lviv Regional Oncology Center in Ukraine, discovered three proteins present in the blood of women with breast and ovarian cancer, but not in the blood of women without cancer, according to a study published today in the International Journal of Cancer.

“Attempts to find a single reliable early protein, or ‘marker’, for breast or ovarian cancer diagnosis have not been very successful,” says LICR’s Dr. Serhiy Souchelnytskyi, the senior author of the study. “However, the use of multiple markers clearly improves the diagnostic ability. There are indications that these markers may also one day be useful for prognosis of the disease course. The proteomics-based discoveries of combinations of markers are already stimulating the development of tests for monitoring the appearance and progression of cancer.”

According to Dr. Kunle Odunsi from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in the USA, head of the international Cancer Vaccine Collaborative’s Ovarian Cancer Initiative, a discovery such as this greatly improves the potential for predictive tests and thus the long-term outlook for patients. “Early detection is crucial for effective treatment, particularly for ovarian cancer. If we can use a simple blood screen to identify this cancer at a very early stage, we can almost certainly make a positive impact on patient health and survival.”

This study was conducted by investigators from the Uppsala Branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (Uppsala, Sweden) and the Department of Radiology and Oncology, Lviv National Medical University (Lviv, Ukraine).

For further details, please contact:

Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research:

Dr. Sarah White, Director, Office of Communications
swhite@licr.org
+1 212 450 1543 (Business hours - New York)
+1 917 974 7952 (After hours - New York)

Dr. Matthias Ernst, Melbourne Branch
Matthias.Ernst@ludwig.edu.au
+61 3 9341 3155 (Business hours - Melbourne)

Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research

The Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR) is the largest international academic institute dedicated to understanding and controlling cancer. With ten Branches in seven countries, and numerous Affiliates and Clinical Trial Centers in many others, the scientific network that is LICR quite literally covers the globe. The uniqueness of LICR lies not only in its size and scale, but also in its philosophy and ability to drive its results from the laboratory into the clinic. LICR has developed an impressive portfolio of reagents, knowledge, expertise, and intellectual property, and has also assembled the personnel, facilities, and practices necessary to patent, clinically evaluate, license, and thus translate, the most promising aspects of its own laboratory research into cancer therapies.