Ovarian cancer is notoriously difficult to detect, with most women's cancers only being noticed when they're so advanced that recovery is unlikely. A group of National Cancer Institute researchers is working on a blood test that would detect ovarian cancer by looking at the pattern of all the proteins in a woman's blood. A few years ago, they reported that the technique worked quite well, better than the other screening options; in this study, they're refining the test.

What the researchers wanted to know: Will high-resolution mass spectrometry (hang on, it makes sense even if you have no idea what that means) make this test more accurate?

What they did: The researchers got 248 blood serum samples from the National Ovarian Cancer Early Detection Program and the gynecologic oncology clinic at Northwestern University. The samples were bonded to tiny chips so they could be processed quickly, one after another. Each sample is processed by running it through a mass spectrometer, a machine that measures the mass of molecules as they fly through it to come up with a protein profile for the sample. They actually used two different kinds of mass spectrometers, one with higher resolution—it can give more specific information about the proteins in the sample. Then the researchers used computers to analyze the patterns for differences between normal blood samples and samples from women with ovarian cancer. Finally, those computer models could be used to try to distinguish normal blood from ovarian cancer blood in another set of samples.

What they found: Using the high-resolution machine, the researchers were able to tell normal blood and ovarian cancer patients' blood apart every single time. That's pretty good and better than they could do with the lower-resolution mass spectrometer.

What the study means to you: This kind of analysis—using chips, lasers, and tons of high-tech equipment—is a promising new way to screen for cancer.

Caveats: It'll be a while before this test is fast, easy, cheap, and reliable enough to use it in every diagnostic lab in the world.

Find out more: The National Cancer Institute's proteomics programs, where this research was conducted. The company Proteome Systems's website has a long article explaining what proteins are and why you should care about proteins and proteomics.

Read the article: Conrads, T.P. et al. "High-resolution Serum Proteomic Features for Ovarian Cancer Detection." Endocrine-Related Cancer. June 2004, Vol. 11, pp. 163–178.

Free article online: http://journals.endocrinology.org