INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana University School of Medicine is testing a diagnostic procedure for ovarian cancer that may provide earlier and better detection of the disease commonly known as "the silent killer."
The procedure, called FolateScan, is designed to determine if a mass or tumor in the pelvis or abdomen is cancerous or benign.
Many cancerous tumors have an unusually large number of binding proteins or receptors for vitamins such as folic acid on their cell surfaces. Folic acid, a member of the vitamin B family, is critical to the process of cell division. Researchers have developed a way to attach or "tag" a radioactive imaging agent to the folic acid causing the cancerous cells to be highlighted when scanned. Folic acid is much more likely to bind to a cancer than to normal tissues or a benign tumor.
If the scan is positive, women with ovarian cancer could be better prepared for surgery which would include determining the extent to which the cancer has developed and, if necessary, whether special techniques to remove the cancer completely are necessary
This is a Phase I/II trial. If successful, the detection procedure should be available for general use within two or three years.
Greg Sutton, M.D., the Mary Fendrich Hulman Professor of Gynecologic Oncology at the IU School of Medicine, said the procedure holds great promise for detection and treatment of a disease which affects 23,100 women in the United States each year. There are 14,000 deaths in the U.S. each year from ovarian cancer.
"FolateScan may lead to new methods for treating ovarian cancer," said Dr. Sutton. "If scanning proves successful, it may be possible to link radioactive or chemotherapeutic agents to folic acid in order to deliver these effective treatments directly to tumor cells.
"Folate scans also may show physicians if and where ovarian cancer has spread within the abdominal cavity, whether treatment is effective in eradicating cancers, and if and when ovarian cancer recurs. The scan may also be applicable to other cancers of the abdomen and pelvis."
This technology could be very important because there are few, if any, symptoms until the cancer has spread.
FolateScan was developed at Endocyte, a biotechnology company associated with Purdue University. Endocyte researchers have patents on the technology for tagging the folic acid with a radioactive imaging agent. This trial, which is also in progress at Washington University in St. Louis and M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute in Houston, Texas, is the first time folic acid has been used to detect cancer.