Reviews and News on Ultrasound Machines

Ovarian cancer is a significant woman’s health issue. In the United States alone, more than 21,000 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year, and more than 15,000 of those women die.

When caught in its early stages and limited to the ovary, however, ovarian cancer can be cured in about 90% of patients. Unfortunately, ovarian cancer is seldom diagnosed until it is at an advanced stage. This is because the disease has few symptoms in its earlier stages, and there are no good screening tools. When ovarian cancer is detected at these more advanced stages, the rate of survival drops considerably, with only 20 to 30% of patients surviving.

An ongoing research study, preliminary results of which have just been announced, has found that it is now possible to detect ovarian cancer in its earlier stages—stages 1 and 2 specifically—using the combination of transvaginal ultrasound machine and the CA125 blood test. Preliminary study results are being published in the April issue of The Lancet Oncology.

The United Kingdom Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening is being conducted at University College London, by Ian Jacobs, Usha Menon, and their colleagues. More than 200,000 post-menopausal women, ages 50 to 74, were recruited for the study, which will continue through 2012.

The women were randomly assigned to one of three groups. The control group received no treatment. The second group received screening using both transvaginal ultrasounds combined with the CA125 blood test; this was referred to as multimodal screening. The final group received screening using only transvaginal ultrasound every year. Clinical evaluations and surgery were given to patients who showed consecutive screens with atypical results.

While the transvaginal ultrasound screening alone detected 75 percent of the cases of ovarian cancer, adding the CA125 blood test improved the rate of diagnosis to 90 percent. More importantly, rather than being diagnosed in the later stages, 48 percent of the cases detected were in stage 1. Previously, only 28 percent of the cases of this disease have been detected in stage 1. Using multimodal screening, many women will be able to receive earlier treatment and anticipate improved outcomes. While the researchers could not speak to the effect of multimodal screening on deaths from ovarian cancer at this stage of their research, their results may well represent a significant step forward in this area.

Because transvaginal ultrasound and the CA125 blood test are already in use and approved by the FDA, there will be no lengthy delay to develop new ultrasound machines or new machinery to analyze blood samples. The new screening protocols can be put into use now.