Antibody in Women's Blood May Indicate Ovarian Cancer

A recent study has found a possible way to identify women who are at higher risk of ovarian cancer, and actually diagnose early onset of the disease. They found mesothelin, a protein present in normal tissue that can develop as an immune system response, in abundant quantity in ovarian cancer cells. Read published study.

When researchers looked into the blood of infertile women, an ovarian cancer high risk group, mesothelin antibody was more likely to be found. And it proved to be the same as with women with cancer of the ovary. On the other hand, healthy women and those with benign ovarian cysts or tumors didn’t have significant levels of the antibody.

The significance of mesothelin antibody in detecting ovarian cancer is just on the first step of the whole long process. More studies will have to be done to identify the correlation of this antibody to infertility, or whether women found to have high mesothelin count in the blood would likely develop ovarian cancer.

Being able to fully maximize the use of mesothelin in detecting early-stage ovarian cancer would be a breakthrough. The presence of autoantibodies could be a significant biomarker, allowing doctors in uniforms scrubs to help patients improve their odds and increase survival rate. Meanwhile, early detection of ovarian cancer remains stark.